Vladimir Putin can attend next year’s G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro without fear of arrest, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said as he took leadership of the forum.
Speaking at this year’s meeting in Delhi, Lula – who has controversially tried to position himself as a peacemaker between Moscow and Kyiv – said the Russian president would be welcome to attend the November 2024 event.
“What I can tell you is that, if I’m Brazil’s president, and if he comes to Brazil, there’s no reason he’ll be arrested,” the leftwinger told the Indian news group Firstpost.
The international criminal court (ICC) issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest for alleged war crimes in March 2023, just over a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As a signatory of the Rome statute, Brazil is required to cooperate with ICC investigations and activities, which legal experts say includes arresting the court’s targets. Putin skipped last month’s Brics summit in South Africa, a decision widely attributed to the fact that it has signed up to the same charter.
Lula, however, indicated Putin would be welcome at the Rio summit, where he said visitors would find “an atmosphere of peace”. Challenged over the fact that Brazil was a signatory to the ICC charter, Lula replied: “He won’t be arrested.”
Lula’s policy of not taking a clear side in the Ukraine war, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives, has irked many western leaders. Washington has accused him of uncritically “parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda”. Ukrainian officials have urged Lula to visit their country to witness “Russian aggression” up close.
Lula has also faced criticism in South America, including from the Colombian writer Héctor Abad Faciolince, who was with the Ukrainian novelist Victoria Amelina when she was fatally wounded by a Russian missile attack in July.
“I would have voted for Lula in Brazil against Bolsonaro of course,” Abad told the Folha de São Paulo newspaper recently. But the writer called Lula’s stance on Russia’s invasion “sad, unacceptable [and] shameful”.
Lula, who has accused the US of encouraging the conflict and refused to provide Kyiv with weapons, defends what he calls his policy of neutrality, arguing that peace can be achieved only if some countries remain impartial.
“It’s true that Russia invaded Ukraine without asking anyone. And that the US invaded Iraq without asking anyone,” Lula told Firstpost, claiming Brazil was “100% opposed” to the invasion of any country.
