- says South Africa has an obligation to arrest Putin when he comes for BRICS summit,
- ED ally, Belarus, being used by Russia as launchpad to wage war on Ukraine,
- Zim, other African countries have moral obligation to support Ukraine’s anti- neocolonial struggle
More than 460 days have passed since the 24 February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. At the time, the Russian government said it had moved in to stop the “Nazification” of its neighbour. It said the invasion was a pre-emptive measure against the Ukrainian government which was allegedly threatening the security and territorial integrity of Russia.
However, Ukraine and western countries have dismissed Russia’s claims. They have instead accused Russia of aggression against Ukraine. The war has had devastating impacts for Africa and the rest of the world through high food and fuel prices.
Russia has been on a massive diplomatic campaign to win the support of African countries with whom it and Ukraine shared strong ties during Africa’s fight against colonialism from the 1960s through to the 1990s. The two warring countries were among 15 states that formed the Russian-dominated Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) which lasted from 30 December 1922 to 26 December 1991.
This week, the Zim Morning Post through journalist, Herbert Moyo, engaged Liubov Abravitova, the Ukrainian ambassador to South Africa and other SADC countries. In the wide-ranging interview below, Ms Abravitova explains why Zimbabwe, South Africa and the rest of Africa “should support” Ukraine against Russia.
Herbert: Please kindly provide an overview of the current situation in Ukraine
Abravitova: The pro-Ukrainian coalition in the world remains strong and consolidated. The consolidation of the world that we are seeing is unique after the Second World War. We just recently commemorated the victims of World War II. As you know, Ukraine played a crucial role in overcoming Nazism in the world. So for us, it’s very special date.
Since the Second World War, we have had a slogan, saying ‘never again’ but unfortunately, it’s happening again, as there is an ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Around 370 000 Russian soldiers are attacking Ukraine, using heavy weaponry. Russia is wasting thousands of its troops but the only place in which it’s still trying to advance is Bakhmut in the Donbas region. As of 10 May 2023, at least 196 000 Russian troops had been killed in action due to our resistance and consolidation efforts.
Russian invaders have been making severe air strikes on Ukraine including a massive missile attack on the ninth of May. I’m happy to say that 23 out of 25 missiles were shot down by Ukrainian forces.
Basically, the Russians have been raining missiles but the Ukrainian army has been able to shoot them down and prevent them from hitting Ukrainian infrastructure and civilians.
The main target of Russian troops today is the multi storey houses where the civilian population is living and the reason is to bring terror on the territory of Ukraine. They want people to become more vulnerable. However, the effect has been contrary to what Russia is expecting because Ukrainians stand very united and are supporting the counter-offensive.
It’s also important to mention that (Belarus President Alexander) Lukashenka remains a proxy of Kremlin in the latter’s war against Ukraine. All this time the territory of Belarus has been used by the Russians for training and logistic purposes.
On the 26th of March, Kremlin announced plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus thus expanding Belarus’ role as a launch pad and military threat to Ukraine, the entire region and the world.
It’s important to speak about how Ukraine sees peace because every war eventually comes to an end at some point. I want to stress that we have our peace formula which has been presented to the world and the whole world is invited to be a part of this formula which seeks to provide Ukraine with security guarantees. A crucial aspect of the (peace) formula is that it’s not merely about achieving a ceasefire. Russia must withdraw its troops from the territory of Ukraine. It’s important to understand that Ukraine is fighting Russia on Ukrainian territory. We are not fighting them on their territory. Russia came into our land and it has violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. With the military, technical and financial assistance of our partners, we are fighting not only to remove Russian troops from our territory, but also to ensure that Russia is rendered incapable of continuing to violate our territorial integrity and threatening our existence.
So we have to ensure that Russia is unable to continue its neocolonial fight in Ukraine. And to achieve that, we call for more and more sanctions against Russia.
I know that for Zimbabwe, the very notion and mention of sanctions is very sensitive. But I believe this (sanctions) is one of the instruments that would help in preventing Russia from continuing to have a capability to conduct military attacks in Ukraine.
It’s also important to note that Russia is continuing with its nuclear blackmailing and food security blackmailing.
Russia has suspended this participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, also known as the New Start Treaty. It has announced its intention to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. So, that’s why we call on the world to take a firm stance and firmly resist the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail.
The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear power plant has become a hostage of Russian troops. Russia is concentrated concentrating its military equipment on the plant and this is a big threat to all of Europe because this is the second largest nuclear power plant in Europe. As you know the history of Ukraine, we had Chernobyl (nuclear disaster) in 1986. The consequences of attacking nuclear plants are very devastating. And they don’t have borders. It’s not only Ukraine but the entire region that will be affected.
From October up to May this year, Russia carried out 33 massive missile attacks on energy infrastructure and facilities of Ukraine. About 270 hits were recorded. As a result, 24 generation facilities, which is about half of the transmission system, substations and trunk power grids were affected.
We should also speak about the prisoners and deported persons as this is another side of war. Ukraine has freed 2300 people from Russian captivity. On the sixth of May, 45 prisoners of war returned to Ukraine.
Still, Russia holds thousands of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians in terrible conditions. And we continue working for the return of all of them from Russian captivity. We call for an all prisoners exchange with Russia.
Another problem is that Russia is not fulfilling its obligations under international humanitarian law. It is severely restricting the ICRC mandate from visiting Ukrainian prisoners of war, and captured civilians. So, we are not fully aware of the real conditions of these people right now.
As you may also be aware, on the 17th of March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for both (Russian) President Vladimir Putin and (Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights) Maria Lvova-Belova for alleged war crimes including the unlawful deportation of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.
And (Ukrainian) President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy has stressed the need to bring him (Putin) and all those responsible for war crimes to justice. In fact it is a genocide of Ukrainian people. It (complying with the arrest warrant) is a matter of principle, not only for Ukraine, but for the justice of entire world.
Herbert: Which countries is your embassy accredited to?
Abravitova: I am the ambassador accredited to South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana. However, the embassy is also responsible for cooperation with seven other countries in the SADC region, namely, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Madagascar and Mauritius.
Herbert: How would you describe Ukraine’s relationship with Africa as a whole and specifically, the SADC region? Some may say that Ukraine is not that prominent on the world stage and what happens there is not necessarily of concern to them as Africans.
Abravitova: Africa isn’t one homogenous entity. It is a very big and diverse continent. Depending on the African country and the region, there can be different dynamics of cooperation and ties with Ukraine. There has been a lot of Russian propaganda (portraying itself as the sole partner of African countries in their struggles for freedom). But as you may be aware, the reality is that Ukraine was part of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) along with Russia and 13 other Soviet republics.
That made a strong connection between our country and sub-Saharan Africa. As part of the USSR, Ukraine was a big part of the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe, the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, as well as other anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles of African countries.
When the USSR broke up in 1991, Ukraine, Russia and other member states became independent countries. I need to make it clear that after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Russia appropriated for itself the legacy of all that we had done on the African continent. The Kremlin made it appear like all this had been done by Russia alone.
Along with this, it (Russia) simply took over what had been Soviet embassies and foreign missions in Africa and other parts of the world. They literally stole the diplomatic presence of former USSR members on the African continent and made them exclusively their own. Ukraine and the other 13 countries that had been part of the Soviet Union had no choice but to start all over again re-establishing bilateral relations with African countries and re-establishing diplomatic missions in those countries.
While we had been making good progress in re-establishing diplomatic relations and presence in several African countries, this was impeded, first by the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and now this current invasion of Ukraine.
All this hasn’t helped us at all. Ukraine has been seriously destabilised. We have had to shift some of our focus to addressing these issues with Russia. The Covid-19 pandemic also came and it didn’t help our quest to establish the trade and economic relations with other countries.
When one looks at our trade turnover with some African countries, they may not see any huge figures. But the true picture is not always visible to many because the interconnectedness of the world today means that the produce of Ukraine may not directly reach African countries but be taken there via other countries.
This war is now showing how important Ukraine is for the southern Africa region.
Herbert: Can you break it down for the ordinary person. Can African countries afford to be neutral in this conflict? What does this invasion really mean for African countries? Why should Zimbabwe and other African countries even care about Ukraine?
Abravitova: Ukraine is not only fighting for its existence. Ukraine is fighting for those values that Africa was fighting for (during the anti-colonial struggles). And by the way, Ukraine played a big part in assisting African countries and their liberation movements.
I would say that due to its history of having to deal with colonialism, the African continent has a moral and historical obligation to condemn any type of neo-colonialism whether it’s happening in Asia, in Latin America or in Europe. If African countries are to adopt a neutral stance or remain silent during this (Russian) invasion, then they will not have any justification to complain when it happens to them because they would have allowed one country (Russia) to violate the territorial integrity of another (Ukraine).
So, this is why African countries like South Africa and Zimbabwe have to support Ukraine. The invasion is Russia’s war against the rest of the democratic world. It is not about Ukraine. It’s about an autocracy fighting democracy. This is why there is now food insecurity in the world. The food crisis is deliberately being established. And Russia clearly understands that the first continent to be affected by food insecurity is Africa.
To give context, about 60 percent of the world’s sunflower oil or cooking oil comes from Ukraine. Fourteen percent of the world’s wheat comes from Ukraine. The invasion is therefore of significance to Africa and the rest of the world because the whole supply chain of different commodities was interrupted.
So, in a nutshell, the African countries are directly affected by the invasion of Ukraine. So we are fighting to prevent any country in the world, whether big or small, violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of another. And I think that for African continent, it’s particularly very crucial taking into account the history, the unfortunately, history of conflicts on the continent.
Due to its history of having to deal with colonialism, the African continent has a moral and historical obligation to condemn any type of neo-colonialism whether it’s happening in Asia, in Latin America or in Europe. If African countries are to adopt a neutral stance or remain silent during this (Russian) invasion, then they will not have any justification to complain when it happens to them because they would have allowed one country (Russia) to violate the territorial integrity of another (Ukraine).
Herbert: You have already mentioned the fact that two months ago, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Putin. As you know, Mr Putin is due in South Africa for a BRICS Summit in August. Given its status as an ICC member, do you expect South Africa to arrest Mr Putin when he steps on its soil?
Abravitova: There is no two ways around this because being a signatory to the Rome Statute (which established the International Criminal Court), South Africa is obliged to adhere to the warrant. That’s it. There’s no two ways about this. It’s their obligation (to enforce the arrest warrant against Putin) and they know it.
Herbert: As the ambassador, have you engaged the South African government on the need to arrest President Putin seeing you are the ambassador?
Abravitova: No. We don’t have to raise this issue with the South African government at a bilateral level. This is an international obligation that South Africa has. We have been following the situation in South Africa and the debates around the (arrest warrant) issue. As you may know, the South African president (Cyril Ramaphosa) recently announced that South Africa would continue to be part of the ICC. This gives us the idea that they have to adhere to their obligations (regarding the arrest of Mr Putin).
Herbert: You also mentioned that Belarus is being used as a launch pad by Russia to wage its war on Ukraine. Belarus has close ties with Zimbabwe right now. Is there anything that you would want to say about that issue to Zimbabwe in view of this situation?
Abravitova: You know, there’s a very fine line there because the Embassy of Ukraine is responsible for cooperation with Zimbabwe and other countries. This embassy has an obligation to develop bilateral relations with Zimbabwe and each country in the (SADC) region. We are informing you about a violation of international law by a big country (Russia) using another country as a launch pad to pursue its unlawful and unprovoked war against another. And we expect the governments of every country in the world, including African countries, to take a stand for justice, and for the values that all of us share in.
