A side skirmish in Russia-Ukraine war flares up in South Africa

JOHANNESBURG — It’s thousands of miles from the front lines, but South Africa suddenly finds itself in the thick of a diplomatic dust-up over the war in Ukraine, and over whether the man who started the war should be welcomed here later this year.

Pretoria’s busy weekend featured President Cyril Ramaphosa speaking by phone with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, addressing a slew of murky allegations that South Africa had secretly sold weapons to Moscow. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken put in a call to South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor, seeking to clear the air on an incident that has strained relations between the two capitals.

The diplomatic dancing began Thursday after U.S. Ambassador to Pretoria Reuben Brigety went public with U.S. suspicions that a Russian ship, the Lady R., had picked up badly needed ammunition, guns and other equipment when it docked near Cape Town in December.

“Weapons of war were loaded onto that vessel, and I will bet my life on that assertion,” Mr. Brigety told reporters.

The ambassador later met with Mrs. Pandor who claimed that he “apologized unreservedly,” but in a tweet, Mr. Brigety said he had merely “corrected any misimpressions left by my public remarks.” There remained, he added, a “strong partnership between our two countries.”

South African officials complained of being blindsided by the U.S. ambassador’s statement, but President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced an inquiry into the allegations. The flap comes as South Africa is trying to balance good relations with the Biden administration with its historic ties to Russia and, before that, the Soviet Union. Moscow was long a supporter of the fight against apartheid and more recently, Russia and South Africa have collaborated as charter members of the “BRICS,” the informal collective of rising economic powers that also includes China, India and Brazil.

Mr. Ramaphosa, in his weekly newsletter released Monday, sounded very much like a man trying to have it both ways, writing, “We do not accept that our non-aligned position favors Russia above other countries. Nor do we accept that it should imperil our relations with other countries.”

Mr. Putin’s plans to attend a BRICS summit to be hosted by South Africa in August would be a significant coup for the isolated Russian leader, but is posing a diplomatic nightmare for Praetoria. Aside from angering Washington and Kyiv, some here fear the host government would be compelled to arrest its guest given Mr. Putin’s recent indictment by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on war crimes related to the invasion of  Ukraine.

There are other considerations at play: Elections are due early 2024 and the cash-strapped ruling African National Congress (ANC) is polling below 50%.  Opposition leader John Steenhuisen of the Democratic Alliance, which hopes to take power next year, said there was “only one logical explanation” why South Africa would have allowed the covert arms shipment, if it happened.

“It is because Russia is financing the ANC,” he said. “President Ramaphosa is selling South Africa’s soul to keep his party afloat.”

The spat has done little to clear up the more vexing question of whether Mr. Putin will visit here in August. The annual BRICS event rotates between member states, but the past three years have been done by video link because of COVID-19, with the meeting in August 2022 hosted by China.

To date, no serving head of state has ever been arrested on a visit to another country, but South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola and Foreign Minister Pandor have confirmed that  South Africa has an obligation to enforce any warrant issued by the ICC.

When the ruling African National Congress (ANC) was in exile and waging a war against South Africa’s white minority government, Moscow provided arms to the party’s guerrilla wing and trained its fighters. But after the Soviet Union collapsed, Russian leaders showed little interest in world affairs beyond Europe and the U.S.

Ambiguous

South Africa has taken an ambiguous stance on the Ukraine invasion, which the U.S. and its NATO allies condemn as a blatant violation of U.N. principles and an unprovoked violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty. But at the ANC’s party conference in December, a motion was passed blaming the United States for the war in Ukraine.

In February, South Africa engaged in a joint naval exercise with Russian and Chinese warships near the coastal city of Durban.

Washington did not raise an official protest, but members of Congress and the Senate criticized the move.

In another bit of awkward timing, the Moscow Times reported Monday that the commander of South Africa’s ground forces was visiting Moscow for previously unannounced talks on military readiness, citing a statement from Russia’s Defense Ministry. South African Lieutenant General Lawrence Mbatha was heading a delegation for talks with Russian military leaders.

In 2015, former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir – also on a warrant from the ICC over massacres in the Darfur region of his country – attended a conference in Johannesburg and no effort was made to detain him. However, a human rights group obtained a court order compelling the police to arrest Mr. al-Bashir, who was rushed to a military airbase and flown out before any action could be taken.

With just eleven weeks until the BRICS summit, it looks less and less likely that Mr. Putin will risk the trip and may instead address the meeting by video, although the Kremlin has stopped short of a definitive declaration. Since his invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Putin rarely travels abroad. Aside from a visit to China, his recent trips have been to nearby allies including Belarus and Tajikistan.

But the Kremlin isn’t making it easy for South Africa, refusing to confirm whether and how Mr. Putin will participate in the South Africa BRICS summit.

“Of course, we will take part in the summit to be held in South Africa,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters last month. “Of course, this will be preceded by our bilateral contacts with the South Africans, we will clarify their position.”

Last month, a Russian air force plane landed at Pretoria purportedly bringing “diplomatic mail” to the Russian embassy. The Ilyushin II-76 is specifically sanctioned by the U.S. for carrying arms of war into the occupied zone of Ukraine.

Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted that the airplane’s presence was “yet another indication that the government of South Africa is not exercising sovereign neutrality, but rather supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine.”

America, he said, “should start taking action to respond to these direct threats to our sovereign interests.”

The arrival of the Ilyushin coincided with a visit to Washington by a delegation from President Cyril Ramaphosa, sent to shore up the notion that his government was not taking sides in the conflict.

Russian trade with South Africa is less than $1 billion a year, twentieth of the U.S. bilateral trade. U.S. corporate giants including outlets for McDonalds and KFC and hundreds of Walmart stores dot the landscape here, and Delta Airlines flies direct to both Johannesburg and Cape Town.

The U.S. also has a long history of engagement with South Africa, as allies in two world wars and in Korea. Presidential visits from both sides are common, during and after term of office.

Currently, the ANC government is a partner in the war on terror, especially against Islamic insurgents across the region.

Bars and beer halls around Johannesburg are always high on conspiracy theories. The latest gossip includes Ukrainian prisoners of war being dropped off by the Russians to be held in local jails and an elaborate plan by the CIA to push the ANC from power by peddling rumors damaging to the party.

Members of Mr. Ramaphosa’s government say they have calmed the water for now with the U.S. South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana told Bloomberg News over the weekend that “the Americans are not likely to respond with any anger” after the government explained its approach.

But with blackouts now in their second year leaving the country without electricity for up to 12 hours a day, and unemployment at a record high, voters are unlikely to care about Russia, Ukraine or relations with the U.S.

Parliament is a different matter and the government will be under pressure to explain what lay behind the visit of the Lady R. and the sanctioned Ilyushin II-76. The opposition, increasingly confident of success in 2024, will be sure to push for answers.