According to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Vladimir Putin won’t be detained if he visits the G20 conference in Rio de Janeiro next year.
The Russian president will not attend the event in New Delhi this year in order to avoid political backlash and the possibility of being arrested on charges issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The ICC, which issued the warrant in March on allegations of forcibly deporting Ukrainian children, a war crime, is not a member of India. The warrant against Putin is “void,” according to the Kremlin.
Recent international conferences have been ignored by Putin, who instead dispatched Sergei Lavrov, his foreign minister, to New Delhi.
Brazil is an ICC signatory but Lula, speaking to Indian news network Firstpost on Saturday, said Putin would be invited to next year’s event, to be hosted by Brazil.
“We enjoy peace and we like to treat people well. So I believe Putin can go easily to Brazil,” he said.
“If I’m the president of Brazil and if he comes to Brazil, there’s no way that he will be arrested.”
Lula also said that he would attend a BRICS bloc of developing nations summit in Russia next year.
On Saturday, the G20 nations adopted a declaration that avoided condemning Moscow for the war in Ukraine but called on all states to refrain from using force to grab territory.
