Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky may visit SA in the second quarter of 2025, but Russia's President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to attend the G20.

Daily Maverick has been told that SA's former finance minister Trevor Manuel will chair a Group of 20 (G20) panel on Africa's deepening debt crisis.

The debt panel is one of the top lines to come out of the first G20 foreign ministers' meeting in Africa, which wrapped up in Johannesburg on February 21.

Closing the G20 meeting, Sherpa Zane Dangor said President Cyril Ramaphosa and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had met several times, and were part of several peace initiatives. He confirmed that a state visit was on the agenda. He added that South Africa's long-held view is that Russia should be part of any multilateral peace initiative for Ukraine. Highly placed Ukrainian sources in South Africa said the visit will likely occur in the second quarter of 2025. Zelensky posted on X on February 21 that he had held a conversation with Ramaphosa, who had invited him to SA. (Read more from News24 here.)

Asked if Russian President Vladimir Putin could attend the G20 November heads of state meeting in South Africa, Dangor also said an arrest warrant would have to be executed as South Africa is a signatory to the Rome Statute (governing membership of the...