International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor says the Africa-led peace mission to war-ravaged Ukraine and Russia is the genesis of a process to returning the world to peace.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa summit in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, Pandor emphasised that security, peace and trade were important subjects for the summit.

"We have also added a much stronger focus on matters of trade and, of course, seven presidents of the African continent are part of the Africa-led peace initiative that seeks to encourage the beginning of peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to end the conflict between the countries.

"This is to start a process of returning the world to a context in which we have peace and stability, and thus allows for economic growth and development which are urgently necessary for many countries in the world, most particularly for us in the developing world," she said.

President Cyril Ramaphosa - who is also attending the summit - will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin a week after his publicised affidavit to the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria that his fear of war with Russia was the reason he did not want to execute an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for Putin, should he visit South Africa.

The government claimed a diplomatic victory last week when it announced that Putin would not physically attend the BRICS summit next month.

Domestic and international laws would have forced the government to arrest Putin.

Ramaphosa told both the ICC and the High Court that he feared that Russia would wage war on South Africa if it were to arrest Putin.

He said the government took threats by Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev seriously.

Ramaphosa's visit to Russia comes a month after the peace mission by heads of state from Comoros, Senegal, Zambia, the Republic of Congo, Egypt and Uganda.

Meanwhile, Pandor says the summit presents African leaders with a chance to engage on pressing issues.

"There are a number of areas we have agreed upon, particularly in the area of digital innovation, collaboration in space science and strengthening people-to-people exchange. All of these will be part of the subject.

"For the first time, it is not just heads of state attending. We also have a number of state-owned enterprises from various African countries, [as well as] finance institutions from the continent and the president of the New Development Bank. This will be her [Dilma Rousseff's] first meeting with several African leaders," she said.

The summit ends on Friday.