The Republic of South Africa has confirmed its invitation to Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the BRICS summit it will host in August, despite the International Criminal Court's memorandum issued against him.
Russia's official Interfax news agency quoted South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor as telling reporters that "President Putin is one of the leaders of the BRICS and is invited to the summit despite the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court of concern."
Pandor added: "Earlier I referred more than once to double standards in international cases. "There are a large number of other countries involved in conflicts, and the ICC has not cared about any of them."
It is noteworthy that Russia rejected the decision of the International Criminal Court, noting that it does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court, and Moscow announced the opening of a criminal investigation against the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and 3 judges.
South Africa is one of the 123 countries that have ratified the court's Rome Statute and recognizes its jurisdiction.
On Friday, the ICC in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes in Ukraine, something Kiev and some of its Western allies welcomed.
The BRICS are an independent international organization whose members say they encourage political, economic and cultural cooperation, and BRICS countries represent 40 percent of the world's population, contribute a quarter of global GDP, and have a population of about 40 percent of the world's population.
The first nucleus of what is now BRICS was formed in 2001 by Brazil, Russia, India and China, then called the BRIC countries, and then joined by South Africa.
Observers see the creation of the bloc as a move to create a parallel entity to the Group of Seven (G7), which includes the United States, Canada, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Japan.