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Russia expects South Africa to guarantee immunity to Putin during BRICS summit — diplomat

Sergey Ryabkov noted that Russia "never was a party to the agreement on the creation of the ICC"

MOSCOW, June 15. /TASS/. Moscow expects that Pretoria will guarantee jurisdictional immunity to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the BRICS summit scheduled for Johannesburg in August, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told TASS.

"We believe that the infamous arrest warrant [against the Russian president] issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) is legally null and void; it was a provocative and completely unacceptable move," the senior diplomat pointed out.

"We expect that, as the host country of the BRICS summit, South Africa will definitely be guided by the understanding that top officials enjoy absolute jurisdictional immunity from prosecution," Ryabkov noted. "We have sent the relevant signals to South Africa and we expect that this is the way everything will be organized in terms of the summit and the Russian leadership’s participation," he added.

The senior diplomat noted that Russia "never was a party to the agreement on the creation of the ICC." "We have made decisions against specific individuals involved in the handing down of the relevant court verdict," Ryabkov stressed.