Detox. No, Putin has not been in Africa for the past few days.

Where does the intox come from?

A video widely shared on Tik Tok – and liked more than 10,000 times – appears to show the Russian president visiting South Africa. The man who publishes this video films himself in close-up and inveighs against the ICC, the International Criminal Court. He asks: “Putin is currently in South Africa. Now go arrest him, go ahead, who are you kidding? »

On March 17, ten days before the initial broadcast of this video, the International Criminal Court had indeed issued an arrest warrant against Putin. At issue: his responsibility for war crimes committed in the context of the war in Ukraine. Which, in theory, greatly complicates his travels abroad, especially in the 123 countries that have ratified the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC, including South Africa.

Why is this wrong?

In reality, Vladimir Putin has not set foot in South Africa. At least not recently. The images relayed here actually go back several years. And do not relate to a visit to South Africa. To get to the bottom of it, just do a reverse image search, from a screenshot of this video. Quickly, our research returns us to the official site of the Kremlin. Where a statement relates a meeting that took place… in May 2015.

On this date, Vladimir Poutine then received, in Russia, the former president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma. And took the opportunity to highlight the “special relations” between the two countries, presenting South Africa as “the first partner on the African continent” of Russia.