Putin calls off trip to emerging economies conference in South Africa

Russian president Vladimir Putin will no longer attend a major conference for emerging economies in Johannesburg next month, South Africa’s presidency has confirmed.

In a statement released on Wednesday, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office announced that Mr Putin will be replaced by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, at the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit.

The summit, which is taking place from August 22-24th, will be attended by the leaders of the other four member countries, the statement added.

Confirmation that Mr Putin will not travel to South Africa comes days before the Democratic Allianceparty was due to seek a court order compelling the government to comply with an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for Mr Putin. The ICC issued the warrant for Mr Putin in March, accusing him and his government of committing war crimes related to the abduction of thousands of children during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022.

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Even though South Africa has stated it is non-aligned in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as an ICC member its government is legally obliged to comply with the arrest warrant. As a result, Mr Putin would leave himself open to arrest were he to attend the summit.

Mr Ramaphosa and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) had been reluctant to commit to arresting Mr Putin, with many analysts pointing to the ruling party’s close ties to the Russian president’s regime.

South Africa has previously declined to comply with one of The Hague-based court’s warrants. In 2015 an ANC-led government allowed Sudan’s then-president, Omar al-Bashir, to leave the country even though the ICC had sought his arrest for war crimes.

As a result, the Democratic Alliance had approached South Africa’s courts to compel the government to adhere to its ICC obligations.

On Tuesday an affidavit submitted by Mr Ramaphosa to the Gauteng high court for the Democratic Alliance’s case, which was to be heard on Friday, was made public. In the document he outlined the reasons behind his government’s reluctance to arrest Mr Putin. According to Mr Ramaphosa, arresting Mr Putin next month would amount to a declaration of war against Russia. It would also undermine a peace mission he launched with six other African leaders in June that is designed to bring Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table, he said.

“It would be a reckless, unconstitutional and unlawful exercise of the powers conferred upon the government to declare war with Russia by arresting president Putin,” Mr Ramaphosa stated in his submission.

But Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen called Mr Ramaphosa and the government’s arguments “flimsy”, saying they were an attempt to “mask its inability to stand up to war-mongers”.