• President Cyril Ramaphosa and Russian President Vladimir Putin met face-to-face for a bilateral meeting in St Petersburg on Saturday.
• It was the first time they had met since the publicising of an affidavit laying out Ramaphosa’s fears of Russia declaring war if South Africa arrested Putin.
• The two leaders appeared at ease with one another.

President Cyril Ramaphosa was all smiles when he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time since the publicising of an affidavit laying out his fears of Russia declaring war if South Africa arrested him.

Ramaphosa and Putin shook hands at the Konstantinovsky Palace in St Petersburg on Saturday.

They were meeting to “discuss South Africa and Russia’s bilateral relationship which is built on strategic partnerships in several areas including energy, industry and agriculture”, according to the Presidency on its social media account.

In photos supplied by the GCIS, the two leaders appeared to be a jovial mood as they posed for the cameras. They smiled and appeared to laugh while talking.

In a publicised affidavit to the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, Ramaphosa said his fear of war with Russia was the reason he did not want to execute the March-issued International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for Putin.

The government claimed a diplomatic victory last week when it announced that Putin would not physically attend the BRICS summit planned for next month, where domestic and international laws would have forced the government to arrest the Russian leader.

Ramaphosa told both the ICC and the High Court that he feared that Russia would declare war on South Africa if it were to arrest Putin. He said the government took threats by Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev seriously.

Ramaphosa and other African heads of state this week attended the second Russia–Africa Summit.