Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pointed out that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin would not be arrested in Brazil during the 2024 Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro as long as he is the president of the South American country.

"People need to take seriously Brazil's independence," and no one can be arrested in the country without the approval of its government, Lula told Indian media outlet Firstpost during the G20 summit in New Delhi.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin in March 2023 over alleged "war crimes." Unlike Russia, Brazil is a signatory to the Rome Statute of the ICC.

Sebastian Schaeffer, Director at the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe (IDM), Secretary General of the Danube Rectors’ Conference (DRC), and Associate Fellow at the Centre for Global Europe of the GLOBSEC Policy Institute in Bratislava, told Ednews that Lula had already backtracked:

"Lula said that it is up to the judiciary to decide, so I think it is less of an issue now as it will be in one year when the summit happens. We don’t know if Putin is still president of the Russian Federation, so let’s see what will happen after that."

Regarding the reason for Lula's backtrack, the expert stressed that he realized that it was not up to him:

"Even if some country leaders think they are above the law, in democracies we still have the rule of law. Lula himself benefited from it."