South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Russian President Vladimir Putin have reportedly reached a mutual agreement that Putin will not attend the BRICS summit in August. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will represent his country at the meeting in South Africa.
This resolves a dilemma for South Africa, which as a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), was compelled to arrest Putin upon his arrival. The ICC levied war crime charges against Putin in March for deporting children from Ukraine. Russia claims the charges are invalid because the country is not a member of the ICC, and that the movement of children to Russia is a humanitarian campaign. On Tuesday, Ramaphosa asked the ICC’s permission to not arrest Putin, as doing so would be a declaration of war. The following day, the Kremlin stated it did not threaten war with South Africa, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters everyone understood what arresting Putin would mean.
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