By staging a joint exercise with Russia and China at a highly sensitive time, South Africa is undermining its claim of being ‘nonaligned’ in the Ukrainian war and risking good relations with the West.
But a South African military analyst said this was simply untrue. “South Africa won’t be able to verify anything. None of its ships deployed has sensors that could reliably determine the real performance of a hypersonic anti-ship missile, let alone any other kind of missile, and the SANDF has no telemetry ranges near there. At Overberg Test Range, maybe, but not on the east coast.
Apart from mounting 16 cells for firing Zircon and other anti-ship missiles and 32 cells of various surface-to-air missiles, the Admiral Gorshkov has a 130mm gun and two turrets, each holding twin six-barrel 30mm cannon and several torpedo tubes.
“So, is this going to be an exercise about how to fire missiles at cities? Durban beware!” one could ask. Or how to recover a “renegade province”?asked the SANDF and the Russian and Chinese embassies for comment on Exercise Mosi II, in particular on the specific concerns raised by the Western diplomats.SAS King Sekhukhune. Inshore patrol vessel. The DA has already condemned Exercise Mosi II, and ActionSA also did so this week.
“Taking on an explicit position of support for Russia may further harm South Africa’s reputation with our international partners. “The ANC-led government should respect international rule of law and follow Mandela’s dream of South Africa using the international stage as a champion for human rights.