Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, center, sits alongside Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, second left, during the Russian Navy day in St. Petersburg, Russia, on July 28, 2019. (Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg)
RIGA, Latvia — Russian President Vladimir Putin, facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes in Ukraine, will not attend next month's summit of the BRICS group of nations in South Africa "by mutual agreement," South Africa's presidential administration said Wednesday.
The agreement with the Kremlin puts an end to a diplomatic quandary for South Africa: As a member of the ICC, it would have an obligation to arrest Putin upon his arrival in the country.
The awkward situation, which had prompted some officials in South Africa to propose that the country withdraw from the court, highlighted how Moscow's war against Ukraine has damaged Putin's international standing.
Attending the summit was expected to be a key moment in Putin's diplomatic calendar for 2023, part of a Kremlin effort to portray him as a leader with many strong global allies, shaping a new multipolar world order as a challenge to the United States. Groupings like BRICS — composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — are key to that vision.
Putin's appearance at the summit also would have snubbed the ICC and undermined its authority.
"By mutual agreement, President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation will not attend the Summit but the Russian Federation will be represented by Foreign Minister, Mr. Sergei Lavrov," the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement.
The summit is to be held in Sandton, an upscale area about 12 miles north of Johannesburg in August, and the Kremlin said Putin would participate by videoconference.
The ICC, based in The Hague, has accused Putin of war crimes over his role in the abduction and forced transport of Ukrainian children to Russian-controlled territory. The arrest warrant, issued in March, has significantly curbed the Russian leader's ability to travel internationally.
Despite that, the Kremlin had pressed South Africa to find a workaround solution that would have allowed Putin to attend the summit, while South African officials were at pains to explain that there was no easy way to allow Putin to attend the BRICS summit without facing the risk of arrest.
South Africa is perceived in the West as one of Russia's strongest friends in Africa, but Putin's determination to attend the summit left Pretoria in an untenable position, analysts said, since failing to arrest him would have meant breaching South African law.
Not only is South Africa a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the international court, but it also has incorporated the statute into South African law. Any move to avoid South Africa's obligations by changing or repudiating the law would have to pass through the South African Parliament and could be overturned by the country's Constitutional Court.
The Russian pressure for Putin to attend caused disquiet among moderates in the ruling African National Congress, according to political analyst William Gumede, of the University of Witwatersrand School of Governance, who is chairman of Democracy Works Foundation, although younger ANC figures, who support Russia and oppose the West, had been eager to see him on South African soil.
South African Deputy President Paul Mashatile told South African media this month that his government hoped Putin would not attend. Mashatile said South Africa did not want to arrest Putin. "That's why, for us, his not coming is the best solution," Mashatile said.
"The Russians are not happy, though. They want him to come," he said.
Mashatile said at the time that Ramaphosa was negotiating with Putin to dissuade him from attending.
"We want to show him the challenges that we face because we are part of the Rome Statute and we can't wiggle out of this," Mashatile said.
Ramaphosa said that Moscow had made it clear to his office that Putin's arrest would "be a declaration of war against Russia." He made the statement in a sworn affidavit to the Pretoria High Court made public on Tuesday, in answer to an application by the opposition Democratic Alliance party that South Africa commit to arresting Putin should he arrive.
"Russia has made it clear that arresting its sitting president would be a declaration of war," Ramaphosa said. "It would be inconsistent with our Constitution to risk engaging in war with Russia."
This was perceived in South Africa as bullying from Moscow, Gumede said. "It came down as intimidation and putting pressure on South Africa, rather than an equal partnership with a BRICS nation," he said.
Putin has often portrayed the war in Ukraine as central to his mission to undermine U.S. global dominance and build a new world order.
Calls by Russia and China for a multipolar world are supported in Africa, where many nations resent Western pressure to pick sides in the war against Ukraine. But Putin has made several stumbles that undermined his pitch to Africa, analysts said, even as he prepares for a summit meeting in Russia with African leaders this month.
Among these were his brusque handling of an African peace mission last month, when he interrupted a delegation before they finished their presentation, and Russia's reimposition of a naval blockade on Ukrainian grain, amid spiking food prices in Africa and an acute food crisis in the Horn of Africa.
According to U.S.-financed Famine Early Warning System Network, a record-breaking drought, conflict and high global food and fuel prices have left millions of people in need of emergency food assistance in the Horn of Africa.
"The grain blockade is going to batter his influence in Africa, among those countries that import grain," Gumede said. "People are beginning to look at Putin differently, in the context of Africa. There's a suspicion that perhaps he's not so much pro-Africa or acting in Africa's interests as people thought."
African leaders will probably press Putin to lift the blockade at this month's summit, although the Kremlin continues to insist without evidence that only 3 percent of Ukrainian grain reached developing nations, a figure disputed by the European Council.
Ramaphosa said in the affidavit that he had constitutional obligations to protect South Africa's sovereignty, peace and security and to promote the full rights of South Africans. Ramaphosa's statement to the court made clear that South Africa had been in confidential negotiations with the ICC, arguing that the country faced difficulties meeting its obligation to arrest Putin.
Ramaphosa's affidavit argued that the obligation to arrest Putin endangered an African initiative pushing for an end to the war in Ukraine.
"The ICC itself has expressed concern over Russia's nuclear threat, following the arrest warrant. South Africa has no capacity to declare or wage war with Russia. Nor does it wish to," the president said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked to comment on whether Russia had warned of "a declaration of war," said Wednesday that "no such wording was used."
"It is absolutely clear to everyone in this world what it means to attempt to encroach on the head of the Russian state, so no one here needs to explain anything," Peskov added.
Yet, in March, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia's Security Council, used this exact wording to describe how Moscow would treat any country's decision to uphold the ICC warrant.
"Let's imagine . . . the current head of a nuclear state went to a territory, say Germany, and was arrested," Medvedev said in a video posted on Telegram. "What would that be? It would be a declaration of war on the Russian Federation. And in that case, all our assets — all our missiles etc. — would fly to the Bundestag, to the Chancellor's office."
As the Kremlin prepares for this month's Russia-Africa summit, even pro-Kremlin analysts concede that Moscow has not delivered on commitments it offered African leaders at the first Russia-Africa summit in 2019.
"Many planned projects were put on hold for reasons that were both objective and understandable," Valdai Club program director Oleg Barabanov wrote in an article on the summit, referring to the war and pandemic. "Russia has departed from its usual, ordinary revisionism to pursue an open military and political challenge to the countries of the West."
As a result, African nations came under Western pressure to cut ties with Moscow over the war, and merely maintaining those ties was "an act of political courage," Barabanov wrote.
The Washington Post's Robyn Dixon contributed to this report.
