South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said she was considering legal options on Putin's arrest warrant. The International Criminal Court (ICC) accused Putin in March of committing a war crime of forcibly deporting children from Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine.
Putin did not confirm his presence, and the Kremlin said only that Russia would participate at the "appropriate level" No formal agenda has been announced, and analysts said the group seeks to be a counter-Western force in the wake of Russia's war on Ukraine.