South Africa to Host ‘Strange’ Naval Drills With Warships From China, Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin (2nd R) stands with three Russian naval officers at a parade marking Navy Day in St. Petersburg, Russia, on July 31, 2022. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

South Africa is set to host what analysts have described as “10 days of war games” with China and Russia from Feb. 17 to Feb. 26, which coincides with the anniversary of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The countries involved have described the event, to be held off South Africa’s east coast, as a “multilateral maritime exercise.”

“We are very much looking forward to seeing the Russian and Chinese navies in action; I am sure our navy will learn a lot,” a senior official in South Africa’s defense department told Voice of America.

A Chinese navy formation, including the aircraft carrier Liaoning (C), during military drills in the South China Sea, on Jan. 2, 2017. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

“They have told us the warships are on their way, and they intend to demonstrate all kinds of sophisticated equipment and weapons, navigation systems, and much more.”

Guy Martin, a military and defense analyst at defenceWeb, a portal that analyzes military and security issues in Africa, told The Epoch Times that the Russian warship Admiral Gorshkov, currently off the Syrian coast, would soon make its way to the port of Durban.

“It’s armed with hypersonic Zircon missiles,” he said.

According to the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, Zircon missiles fly at nine times the speed of sound and have a range of at least 750 kilometers (466 miles), although the Russian military insists the range is more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).

“The Zircon missile is strategically valuable due primarily to its speed,” the alliance states on its website.

“In April 2017, it was reported that the Zircon had reached a speed of Mach 8 during a test. If that information is accurate, the Zircon missile would be the fastest in the world, making it nearly impossible to defend against due to its speed alone.

“Another valuable aspect of the missile is its plasma cloud. During flight, the missile is completely covered by a plasma cloud that absorbs any rays of radio frequencies and makes the missile invisible to radars. This allows the missile to remain undetected on its way to the target.”

A hypersonic Zircon cruise missile is fired from the guided missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov during a test at the Barents Sea, in this still image taken from a video that was released on May 28, 2022. (Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via Reuters)

Russian President Vladimir Putin “has boasted about the Zircon missiles being able to pierce American defense systems,” Martin told the Epoch Times.

“He loves talking about them and really regards them as being the showpiece of his arsenal of cruise weapons,” he said.

“So, for him to be sending a ship armed with Zircons to South Africa is quite something.

“The message it’s sending is, ‘We regard our relationship with you as so close that we’re willing to show you our best weapons; we’re willing to show you the full capabilities of our naval force, and we know you won’t tell the West anything about what we show you, because you’re on our side against the imperialists.’”

The Admiral Gorshkov wouldn’t be the first major Russian vessel to be welcomed to South Africa by the African National Congress (ANC) government of President Cyril Ramaphosa.

In December 2022, the Russian cargo ship Lady R docked at Simon’s Town naval base near Cape Town, with Pretoria ignoring United States and European sanctions on the vessel.

State officials later confirmed that the ship received a consignment of ammunition they said had been ordered by Moscow “before the COVID pandemic.”

Then, on Jan. 28, the Akademik Alexander Karpinsky docked in Cape Town to refuel, having traveled from her homeport of St. Petersburg. The research ship was met by crowds of environmental activists protesting against its annual oil and gas surveys in the Antarctic.

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks during a media conference at an EU Africa summit in Brussels on Feb. 18, 2022.  (Johanna Geron, Pool Photo via AP)

Brooks Spector, a former U.S. diplomat in Africa and Asia who now resides in Johannesburg, told The Epoch Times the South African government’s oft-stated neutrality in the war in Ukraine is a “myth.”

“The upcoming war games offer more evidence, as if it was needed, that the ANC is firmly supportive of Moscow’s actions in Ukraine,” he said.

“This naval exercise that’s going to take place happens to be taking place precisely on the date that the Russians invaded Ukraine.

“That’s a serious symbol of an alignment, if not in word, then certainly in deed.”

The “sensible and sensitive” course of action for Pretoria would’ve been to “quietly” opt out of the joint military exercise, in a way that wouldn’t have offended the Kremlin, Martin said. Instead, he says, the ANC chose to hand Russia a “valuable PR victory” and “to show the middle finger to the West.”

Professor Christopher Isike, a political scientist at the University of Pretoria, told The Epoch Times that “character and consistency” are missing from South Africa’s “contradictory” stance on the Ukraine war.

“It’s a contradiction to say South Africa’s neutral, but then it’s planning to engage in military drills with Russia deliberately timed by Russia to coincide with the first anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine,” he said.

Soviet Military Training

He said Ramaphosa’s administration keeps repeating that it wants “peace and negotiation” and respects the United Nations charter, yet it won’t condemn an attack on a sovereign nation.

“It’s a contradiction to frown on what it says is the Western strategy of regime change in Iraq or Libya, and then be silent about Russia’s strategy of removing the current government in Kyiv,” Isike said.

Martin said it seems as if the ruling party’s history is once again “trumping” what’s in South Africa’s present-day best interests.

Several leading ANC members were educated in and received military training in the former Soviet Union during the apartheid era. Moscow also supported the ANC’s armed struggle for liberation with weapons and money.

But economist Iraj Abedian told The Epoch Times that South Africa has “little to gain, and plenty to lose” by maintaining close ties with the Putin regime.

“If you look at the amount of trade that South Africa gets with Russia versus the West, or even with any of the other BRICS countries, it’s extremely minimal," Abedian said.

“There are more than 600 American companies in South Africa, including motor industry giants such as Ford and General Motors, all contributing heavily to the economy.”

‘Nostalgic Reasons’

“Economically speaking, it doesn’t make sense at all for the government to ally itself with Russia," Steven Gruzd, head of the African Governance and Diplomacy Program at the South African Institute of International Affairs, told The Epoch Times.

“Therefore, the only logical conclusion to draw is that the ANC is with Russia for nostalgic reasons, and also because it has bought into the Russian narrative that the war also represents a struggle against the imperialist West that bullies smaller countries.

“This, of course, ignores the fact that Russia is bullying Ukraine—or trying to, at least.”

Spector said the ANC is ignoring the “wishes and desires” of its own people by siding with Russia.

“The African middle-class and aspirant middle-class population is growing dramatically, and there are more people under the age of 30 in Africa than anywhere else,” he said.

“Ask those people if they want Russian or American goods and services. Pretty much everybody I’ve met in Africa who has any money is keen to get hold of some aspect of American output.”

Martin said South Africa’s participation in naval exercises, no matter the countries involved, is also “strange on a practical level,” given the “poor state” that its navy is in.

Much of South Africa’s naval fleet is in drydock because of a lack of funding and poor maintenance of vessels.

Minimal Navy Budget

“The South African navy is largely inactive,“ Martin said. ”It’s very short on available vessels. Its vessels go in for repair and maintenance and they’re just never seen again, for whatever reasons. Their budget is absolutely minimal. And because of this, its sea hours have been cut dramatically.

“A few years ago, the navy had enough money to spend 12,000 hours at sea; at the moment, it’s 8,000 hours and it doesn’t even use these because its vessels are often broken, or the navy doesn’t have money to fuel the vessels.

“So I’d like to see what it puts on the water. It’s going to be a big ask to expect it to take part effectively in a big operation like this, unless our navy is just going to observe what the Russians and Chinese do.”

For Spector, Beijing’s “relative silence” around the upcoming maritime exercise isn’t surprising.

“The Chinese see this effort, I think, more in terms of being able to watch very closely the quality and effectiveness of Russian long-range naval operations, rather than a full-hearted participation in a tripartite naval exercise,” he said.

“In this sense, the Chinese are participating to gauge the ability of Russia, as a nation with naval ambitions and opportunities, because the Chinese are spending a great deal of time and energy building up their own naval capabilities, mostly focused on the Pacific, of course.”

As for the South African government, its energies and sensitivities remain directed firmly eastward. It described as “hypocritical” the Biden administration’s stated “concerns about any country ... exercising with Russia as Russia wages a brutal war against Ukraine.”

A senior South African diplomat told The Epoch Times: “America has no right to criticize our drills with Russia, especially as it has just held its largest-ever military exercise with Israel.

“We consider Israel to be an apartheid state that for a long time has waged an unlawful war on Palestine.

“But we don’t say we’re concerned about America’s alliance with Israel because we respect every country’s right to choose its friends.”