"President Putin has decided to participate in the BRICS summit via video conference. He will fully participate in the work. Minister Lavrov will be present at the meeting," Peskov said.
Earlier in the day, the South African president's office said that Putin would not attend the upcoming event in person, as the two nations had reached a joint decision on the matter.
"The summit will be attended by the leaders of Brazil, India, China and South Africa. By mutual agreement, Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the summit but Russia will be represented by the country's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov," the office said in a statement.
The office added that "[South African] President Ramaphosa is confident that the summit will be successful, and he calls on the people to provide the necessary hospitality to participants who will arrive from different parts of the continent and the world." Kremlin is yet to comment on this information.
When asked to comment on the matter, Russian Foreign Minister spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Sputnik that “high-level meetings are traditionally commented on by the presidential administration.”
The 2023 BRICS summit is due to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa on August 22-24, an event that will bring together the leaders of South Africa, Brazil, India and China. This will be the first face-to-face BRICS summit since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The World Health Organization declared an end to the pandemic in May 2023.
BRICS, which was founded in 2009, groups Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. A number of other countries reportedly have the intention to join the economic bloc, including Argentina and Iran, as well as Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.