Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to participate in the BRICS summit via video conference, and top diplomat Sergey Lavrov will be present at the event, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Sputnik.
"President Putin has decided to participate in the BRICS summit via video conference. He will fully participate in the work. Minister Lavrov will be present at the meeting," Peskov said.
A day earlier, court documents were declassified in which the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa wrote that Moscow had made it clear that arresting President Putin would be a "declaration of war," which the Kremlin later denied and said no such issue had been raised.
South Africa's neutral stance between Russia and the West over Ukrainian conflict, as Ramaphosa underscored in May, has been the source of "extraordinary pressure" on Pretoria to choose one side or the other.
In mid-March, the Hague-based ICC, which has jurisdiction in South Africa, issued an arrest warrant for Putin in connection with the alleged illegal transfer of children from the combat zone in Ukraine to Russia.
As Peskov stated, raising the issue of the ICC arrest of the Russian president is unacceptable, and Moscow does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC with all of its decisions being null and void from the legal point of view.
South Africa, which assumed the rotating BRICS presidency in 2023, will host the 15th summit of the group's leaders in August.