APA-Pretoria (South Africa) Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to attend the BRICS summit to be held in South Africa in August and is playing mind games as part of efforts to provoke the West, according to Ukraine’s top envoy to Pretoria Liubov Abravitova on Thursday.
In an exclusive interview with Ukraine’s national news agency Interfax-Ukraine, Abravitova said she doubted that Putin would want to risk his life by attending the BRICS summit and accused Russia of “playing a very provocative role” by claiming that their president “will come under any circumstances.”
“I personally do not believe that Putin will come,” Abravitova said.
Putin is the subject of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for alleged war crimes following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.
Abravitova said the dilemma of how to handle the issue of Putin’s ICC arrest warrant has left South Africa “in a serious puzzle,” with Pretoria assessing the consequences on its international relations of allowing the Russian leader to come for the BRICS summit.
South Africa’s foreign ministry last month issued a statement that all summit participants would be guaranteed diplomatic immunity during the summit scheduled for Johannesburg in August.
There is speculation that the 2023 BRICS summit could be moved to China from South Africa which has found itself under pressure to arrest Putin.
Abravitova said there was talk of “the possibility of transferring the BRICS summit to China where China and South Africa could jointly lead the event”.
“Officially, this has not yet been commented on. At the same time, such questions are openly put to the President (Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa). That is, we know that there is a debate about this,” Abravitova is quoted as saying.
Russia is a key member of the BRICS grouping of the world’s largest emerging economies comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
JN/APA