Vladimir Putin will not attend a Brics summit in South Africa next month amid speculation that he could be detained under an international criminal court warrant for his arrest for war crimes in Ukraine.
South Africa’s presidential office announced that the Russian president would not be attending the summit after holding a “number of consultations” with the Kremlin.
South Africa is an ICC signatory and would be expected to aid in his arrest if the Russian leader came to the summit.
Putin’s potential attendance had sparked a domestic political scandal.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said taking part in arresting Putin would risk a war with Russia.
His remarks came after the Democratic Alliance, the largest opposition party, sued the government to demand that Putin be arrested if he arrived in the country.
“Russia has made it clear that arresting its sitting president would be a declaration of war,” Ramaphosa responded, according to court documents. “It would be inconsistent with our constitution to risk engaging in war with Russia.”
The Kremlin denied that it had explicitly told Pretoria that an attempt to arrest Putin in South Africa would be tantamount to a declaration of war. But it did not deny that fact either.
“Nobody informed anyone about anything,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson. “In this world, it’s absolutely clear to everyone what an attempt to encroach on the Russian leader means.”
“Therefore, there’s no need to explain anything to anyone here.”
In March, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin for overseeing the abduction of Ukrainian children in its invasion of Ukraine. Both Putin and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova bore responsibility for the “unlawful deportation” of thousands of Ukrainian children, the court, based in The Hague, said. It was a rare indictment of a sitting head of state.
Russia has denounced the ICC decision and said it does not apply to Russia because Moscow is not a signatory to the treaty. But Putin has not travelled abroad, save for the occupied territories of Ukraine, since the ICC warrant was announced.
Putin will attend the Brics summit by videoconference, the Kremlin has said. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will lead a delegation to South Africa.
The summit is set to take place on 24-26 August. It will bring together representatives of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It is the first in-person Brics summit since Covid.
