Photo by Dylan Hunter on Unsplash
On 11 May, the US ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigeti, said he was aware of arms shipments from the republic to Russia. This precedent occurred in the first decade of December 2022, when the Russian ship Lady R was in the port of Simonstown, where, under conditions of strict secrecy, a shipment of weapons was handed over to the Russians for subsequent transport to Russia. South Africa is the most developed country on the continent and a member of the G20, so such actions are all the more unacceptable in the light of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and the devastation of populated areas and genocide on ethnic grounds. Anyone who helps Russia with arms should be branded a world pariah and should be sanctioned. Any Russian foreign policy success is a threat to Western civilisation, which Putin seeks to destroy as part of the bloc confrontation he is reviving, as was the case during the Cold War.
Russia is not abandoning its attempts to establish a naval base in Sudan similar to a similar facility in Syria, which has existed in Tartus since Soviet times. During the Russian invasion of Syria, during which the ancient city of Aleppo was almost completely destroyed, the Tartus base played an important role as a logistical hub for the transfer of weapons and personnel to the Russian Armed Forces. Africa is of great interest to the Kremlin, a huge, resource-rich continent with weak social institutions, corrupt governments and archaic armies. Under such conditions, Russia is given the green light to intervene and reinforce its presence through all sorts of mercenaries from numerous PMCs, the most notorious of which is the Wagner Group. If Russia’s position is strengthened on the Black Continent, there will be wars and conflicts there, accompanied by a mass exodus of refugees heading for Europe. In Putin’s perception, this could become one of the most significant hybrid threats to the EU and would lead to an upsurge in crime, violence, epidemics and a galloping economic crisis.
Russia is defeated in Ukraine, so it begins to produce hybrid threats and terror that threaten global stability. Putin has launched a war of invasion unthinkable by 21st century standards, but has failed. So the Kremlin is developing techniques to hybridise his aggression towards the West and try to make the rest of the world complicit in the crime. Now is the most opportune moment to weaken and defeat the Russian war machine that has long threatened Europe. Anyone who supplies Russia with arms or enhances its military capabilities elsewhere in the world is an accomplice to war crimes and should be sanctioned. Putin must be placed in total international isolation and any cooperation with Russia must be treated as toxic and damaging.
