Putin to miss BRICS Summit: SA

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the BRICS economic summit in Johannesburg next month, the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement Wednesday.

The decision means South Africa will not face the dilemma of whether it should carry out an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against the Russian leader. South Africa is a signatory to the treaty that created the ICC and would have been obliged under that to arrest Putin, although the country had given strong hints that it would have likely not executed the arrest warrant.

But Wednesday’s announcement allows South Africa to avoid the problem and comes after Ramaphosa spoke with Putin by telephone in recent

days.