On the one-year anniversary of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a Russian warship armed with Moscow’s most powerful weapons pulled into a port on South Africa’s east coast over the weekend.
The Admiral Gorshkov ship, armed with the Zircon hypersonic missile, was just as it was a year ago when Russian tanks and artillery rolled into Ukraine.
The ship is taking part in a 10-day joint naval exercise with South African and Chinese ships in the Indian Ocean. South Africa said the exercise had been planned a long time ago.
The timing of the exercise has angered Western diplomats privately and faced public criticism, CNN reported.
“The timing of these exercises is particularly unfortunate, and it will capture the world’s attention during a war anniversary,” said Steven Gruzd, director of the Africa Governance and Diplomacy Program at the South African Institute of International Affairs. Focus on South Africa. I don’t think the West will let that go.”
Liubov Abravitova, Ukraine’s ambassador to South Africa, said, “It is very disturbing that South Africa is conducting military exercises with an aggressor, and this country is using its military against a peaceful country to bring destruction. And trying to destroy Ukraine”.
In political reality, it might be wiser to exclude Russia, or at least delay the exercise.
Ukraine’s biggest backers, the United States and European Union countries, are also important trading partners of South Africa.
Bilateral trade between the European Union and the United States with South Africa exceeds Russian economic relations many times over. While Russia has promised more trade deals, its battered economy is unlikely to provide the direct investment South Africa needs.
South African officials pointed to joint military exercises with France and the United States in recent years.
cold war ally
But the relationship between South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party and Moscow is too deep to break.
Obey Mabena, a veteran of the armed services of the African National Congress, said in an interview with CNN last year, “Of course, we are on the side of Russia. For us, we think Ukraine is selling. It is selling to the West.”
Mabena, like many of his generation, fled South Africa in the 1970s, driven away by the country’s violent apartheid police. In exile, many young South Africans joined the armed branches of liberation movements such as the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress.
Soviet advisers are often present in training camps in other African countries.
“We found a country like the Soviet bloc ready to give us everything we needed. They gave us food, they gave us uniforms, they trained us, they gave us weapons,” Mabena said. “For the first time we have white people who treat us equally,” he said.
These liberation fighters and politicians had very different experiences from those of the West. The United States only supported broad economic sanctions in the mid-1980s, decades after the apartheid regime in South Africa came to power.
Anti-apartheid activist and South Africa’s first black president, Nelson Mandela, was on the terrorist list until 2008. Many ANC members believe the CIA was involved in Mandela’s arrest, although this has never been proven.
CNN reported that many important cadres of the African National Congress went to Ukraine during the Soviet era to receive education and training.
According to CNN, the anti-apartheid movement has some of its strongest allies in the United States. In Congress, then-Senator Joe Biden lambasted then-President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state for supporting a white African government.
negotiate rather than force
In recent years, the link between South Africa and Russia has been deepened by the formation of the BRICS. The BRICS is an economic and diplomatic partnership consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Pulling out of this joint naval exercise would be an insult to Russia, and probably to China, a more important economic partner. In a statement, China’s Ministry of National Defense has confirmed its participation in the military exercise launched on the 19th, pointing out that the military exercise will promote national defense and security cooperation among BRICS members.
South African diplomats called the criticism of the naval exercise by some countries a “double standard”.
Like some African countries, South Africa abstained from voting at the UN General Assembly on a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion and annexation of Ukrainian territory.
South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, insisted that the goal of the global community should be to negotiate a Russian-Ukrainian solution under U.N. oversight. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa also offered to coordinate the talks.
Neither side, however, accepted the offer.
CNN correspondent David Mackenzie noted that while South African officials view their position as pragmatic, it can hardly be considered ethical. With South Africa having moral leaders like Mandela and the Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Tutu’s foundation said it was not the time to “stand on the sidelines”.
If Russia, as rumored, test-fires a Zircon hypersonic missile from the Admiral Goshkov during military exercises, South Africa could face further criticism.
The missile is a long-range weapon that travels more than five times the speed of sound and is harder to detect and intercept than other missiles.
Putin had previously boasted of the missile, saying it would protect Russia from external threats and would ensure Russia’s national interests.
Displaying this type of weapon in a joint military exercise will be another chance for Putin to make a splash. McCants said it could be a major victory for Putin on the anniversary of the war for South Africa, which has long declared its neutrality.