Billboards encouraging South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to arrest his Russian counterpart during his upcoming visit to the country in August appeared on key roads on Wednesday, ahead of a meeting of BRICS foreign ministers on Thursday.
Pretoria is hosting the BRICS summit this year, and an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin has put South Africa in a diplomatic bind. Avaaz, a non-profit organization based in the United States, paid for the billboards.
The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party announced on Tuesday that it had launched legal proceedings to urge the government to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he attended a planned conference in the country.
A member of the ICC, South Africa, which has close diplomatic ties with Moscow, is due to host the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) bloc summit.
South Africa has come under attack from the West for maintaining a neutral stance on the conflict in Ukraine.
