Russian president Vladimir Putin will not travel to South Africa to attend the BRICS summit, his spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov announced, on Wednesday. He further added that the president will instead attend the summit via video conference.
However, the spokesperson also assured the president’s “full fledge” participation in the summit as “Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will attend the summit in person,” stated Peskov. The Wednesday announcement puts an end to the speculation on whether the Russian president will attend the summit on August 22-24.
South Africa is member of International Criminal Court, which issued a warrant against Putin in March this year. The action of ICC puts SA in difficult position as the nation is expected to carry out its obligation as a member.
Since Putin ordered military actions against Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has been facing such moments in multilateral engagements. Last year at Bali G20 summit, Lavrov represented Russian president, who had attended the summit via video conference.
The Johannesburg BRICS summit will include discussions on increasing the number of member states. Apart from it, the war in Ukraine is also expected to be discussed as BRICS has emerged as a major forum to discuss developing economies.