By Ebi Kesiena
South Africa and Russia will next month go ahead with naval exercises off its eastern coast with Russian and Chinese warships.
According to reports, Operation Mosi, which means smoke, will take place from February 17 to 26.
In a decision that could further strain its relationship with some of its biggest trading partners, South Africa’s reluctance to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its decision to allow sanctioned Russian vessels to dock at its ports have already ramped up tensions with the US, UK and European Union who are backing Ukraine in the conflict.
While the exercise follows a similar event of 2019, it comes about a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, an event that brought into the open South Africa’s close ties with Russia due to historical support for the African country’s liberation struggle and their joint membership of the BRICS group of nations.
While, there is no official response on this from the Spokespeople from South Africa’s defense ministry, US, Germany, Japan and the UK are leading trading partners for South Africa, while Russia isn’t in the top 15.
However, South Africa’s biggest opposition party questioned the wisdom of going ahead with the exercises.
“This gives the impression of not being neutral but being biased to one side. Clearly it can alienate us from other important trade partners, the west,” said DA MP Kobus Marais.
“This is in the best interests of Russia,” Marais said, calling it “another bad judgment, an embarrassment.”
