President Putin will be asked by South Africa to attend a key summit via Zoom and not in person after Pretoria sought legal advice about its obligations to arrest the Russian leader, who has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
Putin was invited to attend a gathering of the heads of a five-strong bloc of emerging economies made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and the hosts, South Africa.
South Africa has refused to support sanctions against Russia or condemn its aggression in Ukraine. However, the recent issuing of an arrest warrant for Putin by the ICC, which has accused him of forcibly deporting Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied territory, has left South Africa’s governing party in an awkward position over the
