Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has sharply condemned SA for its neutral stance towards his country’s war with Russia.
“I do not believe there could be a neutral position to war,” he said in a Zoom press conference with a select group of African journalists on Thursday.
It is the latest in a number of such press conferences by Ukraine’s allies, and it comes days ahead of a visit by US secretary of state Antony Blinken to Rwanda, SA and the DRC.
Zelensky spoke to President Cyril Ramaphosa on the phone in April, roughly two months after the Russian invasion and weeks after Ramaphosa spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Zelensky said he couldn’t understand SA’s stance. “Maybe [it is] because I’m feeling this war and I’m part of this war. Maybe you can’t feel it at a distance, but I believe neutrality is the wrong attitude,” he said.
He said a country could still take a position, even if it didn’t have money or weapons. Failing to do so means “the world can’t see you, and you’re not influencing in the world, and not influencing on saving society”.
Countries in the Nato bloc, like the US, Turkey and Germany, have sent weapons and aid to Ukraine. Even those who previously avoided military alliances, like Finland and Sweden, have stepped in to help.
It’s not about business. It’s about lives
Zelensky said, however, that SA’s neutral attitude wouldn’t prevent it from accessing Ukrainian grain should it be necessary, an export his country was keen to provide to African countries to help stem food shortages.
“It’s not about business. It’s about the lives of the people,” he said in a spirited plea. Global development media agency Devex last month reported that the EU wants to pressure African countries to side with Ukraine by withholding aid and “financial engagement”, according to a leaked report.
SA and a number of AU states abstained from voting on a resolution to condemn “Russian aggression” days after Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Russia is waging a colonial war in Ukraine.
— President Volodymyr Zelensky
Zelensky’s press conference came as the first grain export shipment from his country since Russia’s invasion made its way from Turkey to its final destination in Lebanon under a deal aimed at easing the global food crisis.
AU commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat and AU chairperson Senegalese President Macky Sall early in June called for the resumption of wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia to global markets when they met with Putin in Sochi.
Contrary to SA’s stance that the conflict should be ended through peace talks, Zelensky said he didn’t believe this was possible.
In response to a question from Business Day, he said in his three years as the president of “a peace-loving nation”, he’d been trying to reach out to Putin to talk about the conflict in Donbas and Crimea, “but they always found reasons to make this dialogue not to happen”.
Zelensky said the cruelty of the current conflict “isn’t a dialogue, it’s not a road to peace”. It’s an ultimatum to surrender to Russia, he said. “If they behave as terrorists, then we shall protect ourselves.”
Responding to a question on why Africa should support Ukraine in this conflict, Zelensky said it was because “Russia is waging a colonial war in Ukraine” and was practising “Russia-ism”, meaning that “they believe that 40-million Ukrainians simply don’t exist”.
“It’s a large territory invading other territories,” he said, adding it was “a lot like the events that took place in the African continent”.
It was important for African countries to help because “you understand how painful it is when the world is not paying attention to you”.
He promised to visit the continent after the war, or when he is able to travel again, to establish closer relations.
Twenty-five countries rely on wheat imports from Russia and Ukraine. Between 2018 and 2020, Africa imported $3.7bn in wheat (or 32% of total imports) from Russia and $1.4bn (or 12%) from Ukraine, according to the UN.
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