Vladimir Putin Not Attending BRICS Summit In South Africa
PRETORIA – After all the drama and explosion over Vladimir Putin’s anticipated visit to South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa has successfully managed to convince the Russin Premiere not to attend the 15th BRICS summit to avoid further diplomatic losses.
President Cyril Ramaphosa finalised the format for the summit, revealing that the Russian Federation’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will take his place, the Presidency announced.
Read Also; Fikile Mbalula defends Putin: “do you think that a head of state can just be arrested anywhere?”
The development puts to bed a diplomatic headache that has had the South African government in a chokehold since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s confidential affidavit to the International Criminal Court (ICC) about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s arrest warrant has been made public.
This comes after the Democratic Alliance (DA) approached the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to compel the president to make his answering affidavit public, EWN reports.
In the answering affidavit to the ICC, Ramaphosa stated that Russia made it clear that arresting its sitting president (Putin) would be a declaration of war, reports SABC News.
