2023-07-19 17:05:44
He may never get to sit in the dock, but there is no doubt that the Kremlin has been taken very seriously international arrest warrant that weighs on their leader. Vladimir Putin will not attend the BRICS summit scheduled for next August in South Africaas confirmed by its president, Cyril Ramaphosa. The news broke after Pretoria made one last attempt to try to defuse the explosive mess it was facing with a request to the International Criminal Court (CPI) to allow him to ignore the arrest warrant against Putin for his alleged responsibility in the forced deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia. It does not appear, however, that the application has progressed.
Moscow has confirmed this Wednesday that it will be the foreign minister, Sergey Lavrovwho attends the meeting of the group of emerging economies, which also includes China, Brazil and the India, in addition to South Africa and Russia. Putin will limit himself to “full participation” by video conference. “By mutual agreement, President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation will not attend the summit, but the country will be represented by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov,” the South African presidency said in a statement.
War declaration
South Africa is one of the countries in the global south that does not support the sanctions policy against Russia for its military aggression in Ukraine, but as a signatory country of the Rome Statute that served to create the CPI is obliged to comply with its resolutions, such as the one issued at the end of March against Putin for “treating Ukrainian children as if they were a spoils of war”, in the words of the chief prosecutor of the CPI, Karim Khan.
Related news
Pretoria had so far refused to publicly clarify how it would proceed if Putin landed in the country, but this week Ramaphosa pointed out that the detention would amount to a declaration of war. “South Africa has an obvious problem executing President Putin’s arrest and detention warrant,” the South African leader said in responding to a lawsuit filed by South Africa’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (AD), seeking a ” declaratory order” that guaranteed the arrest of the Kremlin leader.
“Russia has made it clear that arresting its president would be a War declaration. And it would be contrary to our Constitution to risk going to war with Russia,” Ramaphosa added in the court response. The Kremlin has denied that it addressed the issue with South Africa in those terms.
#Putin #attend #BRICS #summit #South #Africa #fear #arrested