Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s scheduled official state visit to SA is next week is fraught with huge geopolitical repercussions for Pretoria.
Since the announcement in recent times that President Zelensky would be landing on our shores on April 24, I’ve been grappling to wisdom behind his visit.
In all honesty, and without a shred of bias, I could find no good reason, or logic, behind President Cyril Ramaphosa’s preparedness to lay the red carpet for his beleaguered counterpart.
Now, before emotions get the better of anyone, it is vital to analyze SA’s foreign policy of non-alignment.
At face value, non-alignment would mean that in any situation in global relations, Pretoria take no sides. Additionally, Pretoria holds very sacred the country’s sense of sovereignty that guarantees SA’s independence of thought and freedom of association.
However, as is the reality, in diplomacy some things are more important when kept unsaid than those unarticulated.
Granted, SA’s sovereignty is sacrosanct, but bilateral relations and multilateralism are important cornerstones in how states are viewed by the rest of the international community.
President Zelensky visits South Africa at a time when his pop-star-like status is waning in the West. The Trump administration, the new sheriff in town, have undone every aspect of their predecessor’s limitless material support for Zelensky.
Europe is currently grappling with maintaining the early days unwavering support for Ukraine, which was on the back of Washington.
In a constantly changing geopolitical landscape, Ukraine finds itself no longer the darling of the West. The US under Trump has cut aid to Kiev to the bare minimum, and also withdrawn the diplomatic insulation from harm for the Zelensky administration.
The UK and France, notably followed by Germany, are desperate to shore up European support for Ukraine, which is characterized by explicit display of Russophobia. It is difficult to see how a disjointed Europe will do anything in opposition to the US. Already, the UK and France are publicly crying out for a US “backstop” in their attempt to form a so-called “coalition of the willing” aimed at sending troops to Ukraine post Trump-brokered peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
The long and short of it is that without the guaranteed backing of the US military, Europe has no capacity to challenge the Russian military.
Trump has already indicated he would not participate in the troop deployment to Ukraine in any capacity. In addition to the simmering geopolitical dichotomy between the US and Europe, Trump has imposed damaging tariffs on the entire EU bloc. Prominent officials in the Trump administration, such as Secretary for Defense Pete Hegseth, have gone on record describing Europe as benefiting from “freeloading” on the US for far too long.
Furthermore, Trump has adopted a visibly unfriendly tone and posture towards Zelensky, accusing him of “starting the war”. This is a bitter pill for Europe to swallow. The same goes for the democrats in Washington, who not long ago were behind former President Joe Biden in a gloves-off war-mongering campaign against Russia.
Trump has turned the tables, and is rewriting the script. He wants, nay, demands, peace deal between Moscow and Kiev. And if Trump does fall out with Zelensky beyond repair, expect only pain – geopolitically and economically. SA, I’m afraid, will pay the same price as Ukraine – by virtue of association.
I paint this background to lay bare the man the Ramaphosa administration wants to receive with pomp and ceremony. To complicate frosty bilateral relations between SA and the US, Trump has a dim view of Pretoria.
The expulsion from Washington recently of SA’s envoy, Ebrahim Rasool, underscored the growing negativity with which the Trump administration has for SA.
The largely untold trigger of the deterioration in bilateral relations between Washington and Pretoria is the fact SA took Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing the US-backed Jewish state of genocide in Gaza.
In the midst of the widening schism, Pretoria seems unwisely happy to host Zelensky, thereby risking further drifting away from the US preferential partnership.
Let me further add to the complication that is the Zelensky visit: SA is risking to spoil its bilateral relations with Russia, a key partner in BRICS.
By extension, other BRICS partners are clearly watching the developments with keen interest. BRICS members such as Brazil, China, India, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia and UAE must be wondering what kind of an ally SA is.
The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has an ICC warrant of arrest and his foreign travels are restricted. Putin could not attend the BRICS Heads of State summit in SA in August 2023 due to the ICC warrant. If Pretoria wants to be seen to play the role of a peace broker by hosting Zelensky, surely there is no iota of chance that they could extend the same privilege to Putin?
The possible fallout from this saga is going to be too costly for Pretoria. A situation where SA could no longer be trusted by allies in a strategic bloc that is BRICS will prove to be a significant miscalculation indeed.
The saddest thing is that this unwanted focus on Pretoria’s foreign policy is entirely unnecessary, and avoidable. I am not certain if the visit could not be put on hold for a while as Trump continues to end the war through negotiations that are so far constructive.
Diplomatic astuteness tells me that the Ramaphosa administration could have read the unfolding global dynamics and the reconfiguration of international relations currently underway.
The repercussions from hosting Zelensky are too aghast to contemplate. Zelensky is not a unifier. Instead, he is a divisive character that shoots from the hip, as he did during his visit to the White House that ended quite ugly as he was scolded before cameras.
I foresee too many negatives from hosting Zelensky than any positive imaginable. Hosting the man will cause massive geopolitical damage, and the wound would be too deep. To make matters worse, the wound would be self-inflicted, unless President Ramaphosa revisits the decision. There is still a bit of time that could be used wisely. A Zelensky state visit in peace time will be much better than the unfolding inexplicable geopolitical misstep, waiting to cause great harm to SA’s standing across the Global South in particular.
