The presidency again stopped short of calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine or sanctions against Russia on Sunday, even as Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the stakes yet further by ordering his military command to put nuclear-armed forces on high alert.
Minister in the presidency Mondli Gungubele reiterated President Cyril Ramaphosa’s call last week for a UN-mediated solution to Russia’s invasion.
“The president was very clear on the matter ... with regard to negotiation and mediation. It is the stance of this country ... that we will always prefer peaceful solutions over conflict.
“We will always be opposed to any conflict that leads to loss of life,” Gungubele told reporters on Sunday.
Last Thursday, international relations minister Naledi Pandor called on Russia to immediately withdraw its forces after it shattered European stability with a full-scale assault on Ukraine in the early hours of the morning. But since then the government has adopted a more muted position, toeing the ANC line that other countries and the UN Security Council should step in and mediate.
Western countries have agreed to block Russian banks from the international payment system SWIFT, and a growing number of European countries have announced that they will close their airspace to Russia.
The AU has called for a ceasefire and for Ukraine and Russia to open negotiations, but most of its member states have so far remained quiet.
Putin ordered his military command to put nuclear-armed forces on high alert on Sunday after Ukrainian fighters defending the city of Kharkiv said they had repelled an attack by invading Russian troops.
Putin cited aggressive statements by Nato leaders and economic sanctions imposed by the West against Moscow.
“As you can see, not only do Western countries take unfriendly measures against our country in the economic dimension — I mean the illegal sanctions that everyone knows about very well — but also the top officials of leading Nato countries allow themselves to make aggressive statements with regards to our country,” Putin said on state television.
US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield responded: “President Putin is continuing to escalate this war in a manner that is totally unacceptable and we have to continue to stem his actions in the strongest possible way.”
On the fourth day of the biggest assault on a European state since World War 2, the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow would be held at the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. They would meet without preconditions, it said.
Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have fled the Russian assault into neighbouring countries. The capital, Kyiv, was still in government hands on Sunday, with Zelensky rallying his people despite Russian shelling of civilian infrastructure.
Ukraine’s Western allies have ratcheted up their response to Russia’s invasion with an almost blanket ban on Russian airlines using European airspace. In the strongest economic sanctions yet on Moscow, the US and Europe said on Saturday they would banish big Russian banks from the main global payments system and announced other measures aimed at limiting Moscow’s use of a $630bn war chest of central bank reserves.
On Sunday, the ANC reiterated Ramaphosa’s call for mediation and a peaceful resolution to the conflict. TimesLIVE reported that the chair of the party’s subcommittee on international relations, Lindiwe Zulu, said: “The ANC is committed to the values of the UN for pursuance of peaceful and diplomatic resolution of conflict. The ANC is quite firm in calling for commitment to dialogue and peaceful resolution of the conflict.” With Reuters
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