Military exercises are underway off the coast of South Africa in the Indian Ocean. These exercises, carried out with China and Russia, make Western countries cringe, and call into question the neutrality claimed by South Africa in the conflict in Ukraine.
The Mosi 2 exercise is underway in South Africa. Under this code name, which means “smoke” in the Sotho language, hides military exercises carried out off Durban, in the east of the country, with China and Russia. They should last another week and will therefore still be in progress on February 24, the date of the start of the war in Ukraine.
Even if for Pretoria, it is simply a classic exercise with its BRICS allies, planned for a long time, as the country has already done with the United States and France. According to South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor, everyone is free to organize this type of military collaboration “with his friends”without having to receive “some pressure”.
Critics of the South African opposition
But for South Africa’s Western partners, these exercises come at a very bad time. This “is not really what we would have preferred”, pointed out the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell, during his visit to the country last month, qualifying however that Pretoria is free to take its own “sovereign decisions”.
Within the local political class, the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, was also offended by this event, going so far as to qualify the country “useful idiot”, serving Russian propaganda, a year after the start of the war in Ukraine.
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A difficult balance for South Africa
It is a balancing act that South Africa is carrying out with its partners in deciding to maintain these naval operations. On the one hand, the country wants to be the defender of a new world order, where the nations of the South would no longer be subject to the decisions of the North, and a strengthening of ties with the BRICS is part of this strategy. South Africa also claims to belong to the non-aligned movement, to explain its displayed neutrality vis-à-vis the war in Ukraine.
But on the other hand, it cannot do without its economic relations with Western countries, which weigh much more in the balance than those, almost non-existent, with Russia. Thus in January, the country experienced a veritable diplomatic ballet, with the passage of representatives from Russia, the European Union, and the United States. These naval exercises will, in any case, be closely scrutinized by all, in particular to find out whether the Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov will have taken the opportunity to fire its Zircon hypersonic missiles for a test.
