South Africa has suspended ammunition shipments to Poland. The Kremlin’s background

• The Polish order was worth R893 million, or PLN190 million. Only the United Arab Emirates submitted a higher licence, while South Africa withheld three of the 18 licences.
• Exports of weapons and ammunition to Türkiye and Saudi Arabia have also been partially suspended
• Last year, the country’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) said in an official speech that Putin’s “United Russia party is a long-term ally and friend of the ANC.”
• The ANC’s financial situation also sheds light on South Africa’s decision. When the party was experiencing financial problems, Viktor Vekselberg United Manganese of the Kalahari (UMK), a Russian mining company close to Putin, donated nearly $1 million to the ANC.

Poland, like several non-NATO countries, immediately ordered its withdrawal from Ukraine in early 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. South African company Denel Munition, a subsidiary of German arms maker Rheinmetall, 55,000 Assegai shells.

– We are very pleased that a NATO member state is once again placing its trust in our globally proven technology – said Jan-Patrick Helmsen, Managing Director of Denel Munition, regarding the contract at the time.

South Africa suspends ammunition shipments to Poland

However, later that year, South Africa’s National Conventional Arms Control Council (NCACC), which is part of the Ministry of Defence and is responsible for arms contracts signed by South Africa, decided to suspend the order.

Ezra Yeller, head of the agency’s secretariat, explained late last year that authorizations for the export of ammunition to some countries, including Poland, had not been canceled, but only suspended. He did not explain when a decision on approval or rejection would be made.

The Polish order is worth 893 million rand, or about 190 million zlotys. Only the one submitted by the United Arab Emirates was higher. South Africa has withheld three of the 18 licences. Exports of arms and ammunition to Turkey and Saudi Arabia have also been partially suspended.

In 2023, the South African Parliamentary Defense Committee asked Jele why these exports were suspended despite the fact that the UN Security Council had not imposed an embargo on Poland or Turkey, and Jele explained that the problem was that the order could be redirected. Weapons bound for Poland could be diverted to Ukraine – he said. He stressed that the committee takes into account many factors when deciding whether to approve or deny a licence, including the arms embargo, human rights violations, regional dynamics that could lead to instability and diversion risks, as well as South Africa’s national interest.

In South Africa, the issue of supplying weapons to Poland is being discussed. Russian influence in the background

Last April, the then largest opposition party, the pro-Western, anti-Russian Democratic Alliance, took an interest in the matter. Her shadow defense minister, Kobus Marais, formally asked Defense Minister Thandi Modise why exports to Poland were suspended. The minister referred the question to the NCACC, which succinctly replied that “exports to Poland must comply with NCACC standards.”

Also in April last year, when then-International Relations and Cooperation Minister Naledi Pandor received Russia’s Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Alexander Kozlov in Pretoria, the country’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) said in an official speech that Putin’s “United Russia is a long-standing ally and friend of the ANC.”

The financial situation of the ANC, which was preparing for parliamentary and presidential elections last year, also shed light on South Africa’s decision. At the beginning of 2023, the party was heavily in debt and had little campaign funding capacity, and was even unable to organize a pre-election congress. Then, under US sanctions, Viktor Vekselberg United Manganese Kalahari (UMK), a Russian mining company close to Putin, donated nearly $1 million to the ANC. The opposition said it undermined the party’s claims of neutrality on the war in Ukraine and its refusal to criticise the Russian invasion.

In May’s elections, the ANC won its first victory in 30 years. Must share power with opposition partiesThe country’s foreign policy, including the alliance with the Democratic Party, has not changed. Congress retains the most important posts in the government, including foreign affairs and defense. He also retains his pro-Russian sympathies.

For decades, the ANC has had a very friendly relationship with the Kremlin. In its struggle to overthrow the racist system of apartheid in South Africa, the ANC received strong support from the Soviet Union and Cuba, while the United States and Britain considered it and its leaders terrorists and communists. The U.S. Congress did not decide to impose sanctions on South Africa for its apartheid policies until 1986, a fact that the revolutionary wing of the South African party reminds us of at every annual conference.