It’s the end of a long suspense. Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the Brics summit in Johannesburg at the end of August, the South African presidency announced on Wednesday July 19, ending months of speculation on the subject and a thorny dilemma for Pretoria.
South Africa chairs the Brics group (South Africa, Brazil, China, India and Russia), and will host the 15th summit of these emerging powers from August 22 to 24, to which the Russian leader was invited. But the latter has been targeted since March by an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for the war crime of “deporting” Ukrainian children since the invasion of Ukraine, charges that Moscow rejects outright.
As a member of the ICC, South Africa is theoretically supposed to arrest Vladimir Putin if he enters its territory. But Pretoria remains close to Moscow, and has refused to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for African President Vincent Magwenya announced that “by mutual agreement, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin will not attend the summit”, where Russia will be represented by its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The decision was taken after “a number of consultations” conducted by President Cyril Ramaphosa over the past few months, the last of which “last night”, he said in a statement.
In a recent interview with local media, South African Vice President Paul Mashatile said his government was trying to convince Vladimir Putin not to come to the summit.
The leaders of all the other member countries of the BRICS will be present at the summit, said Vincent Magwenya. “President Ramaphosa is confident that this summit will be a success and calls on the nation to provide necessary hospitality to the many delegates who will arrive from various parts of the continent and the world,” the spokesperson stressed. Pretoria has avoided at all costs to reproduce the same situation as in 2015, when the Sudanese Omar al-Bashir, prosecuted by the ICC, was able to enter and leave the country without being worried.
The case of Vladimir Putin’s coming or not has taken a legal turn in South Africa, as the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has asked the courts to force the government to ensure that the Russian president will be arrested and handed over to the ICC if he sets foot in the country.
Arresting Vladimir Putin would be a “declaration of war” on Russia and would threaten the “security, peace and order of the state” of South Africa, President Ramaphosa said in a sworn statement attached to the proceedings, and published Tuesday by the media, where he denounces the “irresponsible” request of the DA. “It would not be consistent with our Constitution to risk engaging the country in a war with Russia,” he wrote, saying it would violate his duty to protect the country. This statement reveals that South Africa has sought an exemption from ICC rules on the grounds that the arrest of Vladimir Putin could threaten “the security, peace and order of the State”, in the words of Cyril Ramaphosa.
Pretoria has long shown its willingness to remain neutral on the war in Ukraine, and has been accused of leaning in favor of Moscow. Some South African officials feared that hosting Vladimir Putin would be seen as a sign of support for Russia, and threaten South Africa’s important economic and trade ties with the United States and Europe, staunch opponents of the Russian president. Trade between South Africa and Russia is much more modest.
But the ties between the two countries go back several decades, to the apartheid era, when the Kremlin gave its support to the African National Congress (ANC, now in power) in its fight against the racist regime.