South Africa will not invite Putin to next G20 summit over ICC arrest warrant

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be invited to the next G20 summit due to a pending arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), a spokesperson of the South African president told Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency on Dec. 15.

South Africa, which has chaired the organization since Dec. 1, was also unable to host the Russian leader in August during their BRICS meeting in Johannesburg.

"The legal situation has not changed since the BRICS summit in Johannesburg. We cannot influence the ICC's decisions in any way," spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said, according to TASS. The next G20 summit is scheduled for Nov. 21-22, 2025.

South Africa, the largest economy on the continent, has claimed neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine war but continued to strengthen its economic and political ties with Moscow. The country is a member of the BRICS group alongside Russia, China, and others, and it even carried out joint naval drills with the two countries last year.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin over allegations of war crimes, specifically the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia following Moscow's invasion in early 2022.

This forces the Russian leader to carefully select his travel destinations, as any country in the ICC must arrest him under the warrant. South Africa is a signatory of the ICC's Rome Statute.

In November, Putin also chose not to travel to Brazil for the last G20 summit but sent his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in his place. The G20 group includes several countries that have fostered closer economic cooperation with Russia throughout its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including China and India.

Putin visited Mongolia, a member of the ICC, in September of this year, where the Russian president received a warm welcome in Ulaanbaatar.

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