South African President Cyril Ramaphosa warned on Tuesday that a possible arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin during the summit of emerging economies known as BRICS in August would be a "declaration of war".

In a statement that until now was confidential and was made public yesterday, Ramaphosa said that "Russia has made it clear that arresting its sitting President would be a declaration of war; it would be contrary to our Constitution to risk going to war with Russia".

For Ramaphosa, taking the risk of war with Russia would be "a reckless, unconstitutional and illegal exercise in the face of the powers vested in the government", and he added: "I have constitutional obligations to protect the national sovereignty, peace and security of the Republic and to respect, protect, promote and satisfy the rights to life, security and safety of the people of the Republic".

According to local media, quoted by the EFE news agency, this was the presidential response to a request submitted to the court by the Democratic Alliance (DA), the main opposition party in South Africa, to get a court order to guarantee Putin's arrest if the Russian head of state does indeed attend the BRICS (Brazil, China, Russia, India and South Africa) summit, scheduled for August in South Africa.

Sub-Saharan Africa's largest economy and a traditional ally of Russia is in a dilemma as to whether Putin will attend, since on the one hand he has an international arrest warrant for crimes against humanity following the invasion of Ukraine, but on the other hand he is a guest of the country organizing the summit.

South Africa, which is a member state of the International Criminal Court (ICC), will host the summit between August 22 and 24 in Johannesburg, but is obliged to cooperate with Putin's arrest, but Pretoria has so far not revealed what it will do if Putin actually lands in the country.

At the end of May, South Africa's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an order guaranteeing diplomatic immunity to all Russians attending the summit, thus paving the way for Putin to attend.

However, the ministry spokesman admitted that "these immunities do not annul any judicial order issued by an international court on any participant in the summit".

South Africa has adopted a neutral stance on Russia's war against Ukraine, and has defended dialogue and diplomacy as the means to resolve the conflict.