South Africa will not invite Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit scheduled for November 2025. The reason is the presence of an arrest warrant for the Russian president issued by the International Criminal Court. This is reported by rosZMI.
South Africa, which is a signatory of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, is obliged to arrest Putin in the event of his arrival on the territory of the country.
“The legal situation has not changed since the BRICS summit in Johannesburg. We cannot influence the decision of the ISS in any way.” – said the official representative of the President of South Africa, Vincent Magwenya.
This trip could have been Putin’s first major foreign visit since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, but Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will go to South Africa instead.
A similar situation arose at the G20 summit in Brazil, which took place on November 18-19 this year. Putin refused to participate, saying that he did not want to “disrupt” the normal work of the forum with his presence, which could shift the main focus to the warrant for his arrest.
At the same time, despite the ICC warrant, the Russian leader will be able to participate in future peace conferences on the settlement of the war in Ukraine, which Switzerland plans to organize.
