Weapons or ammunition on board?: South Africa and the mysterious ship from Russia

A container ship from Russia switched off its transponder off the South African coast, docked near Cape Town and loaded boxes with unknown contents under cover of darkness. The USA speaks of arms deliveries, South Africa remains silent.

On December 3, the “Lady R” docks near Cape Town. In camera, because the container ship switched off its transponder days before its arrival. It docks clandestinely at Simon’s Town, South Africa’s largest naval port, just south of Cape Town. Goods are then loaded under cover of darkness. Deliveries of arms, claim the USA, because the “Lady R” comes from Russia.

Several witnesses claim to have observed the mysterious loading operation in the port of Simon’s Town. in the Wall Street Journal they say that for two nights in December, crates were loaded onto the “Lady R” – under the supervision of armed security forces. That would have been impossible without permission from South Africa, says a senior US official.

“It is in the nature of things that there is little transparency in armaments deals, but in fact there is quite a lot of speculation in South Africa itself as to what was delivered from Russia and what was loaded on the ship the other way around,” reports the political scientist Melanie Mueller by the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), in the ntv podcast “Learned something again”.

The South Africa expert can’t say anything about the American allegations either, but emphasizes that although South Africa cooperates with Russia in many areas, “armament cooperation has not played a prominent role in recent years.”

“Everything that smells of Russia”

The South African government will neither confirm nor deny that the arms shipments were involved. Instead, Defense Secretary Mapisa-Nqakula accuses Washington of threatening “all of Africa, not just South Africa,” “with anything that even smells like Russia.”

The American accusation comes with an announcement: The USA had already imposed sanctions on the “Lady R” in May last year because the shipping company MG-Flot had already attracted negative attention in the past.

In April, the Greek coast guard arrested the “Lana”, another MG-Flot ship, citing EU sanctions against Russia. As a result, the USA confiscated part of the cargo by court order, namely oil from Iran sanctioned by the Americans. The “Lana” was subsequently released by the Greek authorities in exchange for two Greek tankers held by Iran. The ship eventually delivered the remaining cargo to Syria. In July, another MG-Flot ship was impounded in India for allegedly failing to pay fuel bills to an Estonian company.

South Africa ignores the US

Last fall, the “Lady R” steered through the Strait of Gibraltar towards the Canary Islands and along the west coast of Africa to Cameroon. After the stopover, the Americans were finally certain in November that South Africa was the destination of the Russian ship. The US Embassy in Pretoria warned the South African government that the ship is under sanctions.

Apparently, the South African government didn’t care. She simply did not reply to the American embassy. The country does not want to alienate any side, analyzes expert Müller. South Africa is part of the Brics States, a union of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. “South Africa is trying to navigate back and forth between the Brics and the West. Since the start of the Russian war of aggression, there has been concern in South Africa that there is now a lot of pressure to end cooperation with Russia. They are resisting that.”

That’s why the “Lady R” was apparently allowed to do so. On the morning of December 9, she left Simon’s Town harbour. In the evening she switched on her transponder again, but by then the ship was already anchored 100 kilometers to the east in international waters. In early January, the “Lady R” pulled into the port of Beira, a coastal town in Mozambique.

Ammunition delivery likely

Darren Oliver, Director of African Defense Review, considers it likely that the ship brought ammunition from Russia to South Africa. Because in 2020 the government in Pretoria approved the import of 4.5 million rounds of ammunition, as the expert on African security policy explains in the Wall Street Journal. What was loaded onto the ship in return, he cannot say either. The South African armaments industry does not produce any weapons or weapon systems that are used by the Russian military, he explains the initial situation.

It is possible that Russia wants to bring dual-use goods into the country via South Africa. This could be, for example, guidance and control systems that can be used to manufacture drones and thus used in the war against Ukraine.

Melanie Müller explains in the podcast that Russia is an important partner for South Africa, one that despite the war of aggression against Ukraine they do not want to push away. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) emerged from the anti-apartheid movement and was supported in its fight against racial segregation by the Soviet Union, among others. “Friendships were formed there. There was financial support, but also arms deliveries for the armed struggle against apartheid. Many ANC politicians see Russia as an ally because it was on the right side in a life-threatening situation.”

“President called off Secretary of State”

However, at that time it was not Russia that officially supported the fight against apartheid, but the Soviet Union and thus also Ukraine. That is why a critical debate is currently taking place in South Africa about the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. “I was in South Africa on the day Russia attacked Ukraine. Initially, the Foreign Minister spoke out in favor of describing and criticizing Russia’s actions as an invasion, but then President Cyril Ramaphosa called her off,” reports Müller.

South Africa has since abstained from all UN resolutions condemning Russia’s war of aggression. In the West, this position is sometimes seen as an endorsement of Russia’s actions. South Africa defends itself against this with reference to its supposedly special role. The government in Pretoria sometimes says that perhaps at some point in the course of the war one could become a neutral mediator.

South Africa is therefore not refraining from holding a joint military exercise with China and Russia off its own coast in February. The three countries already did that in 2019. The opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) sharply criticizes this. The accusation is that the ANC is de facto siding with Moscow.

The opposition may not have liked the fact that Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was received in the capital Pretoria at the beginning of the week. It was his first visit since the invasion of Ukraine. Lavrov said Russia appreciates the independent, balanced stance of its “South African friends.”

Don’t belittle the mysterious visit

Melanie Müller sees this as a geopolitical competition for cooperation with African countries. “We’ve also seen a lot of trips by European politicians to Africa recently, and Joe Biden also visited Africa last year. The competition for power and influence is ongoing.” In the African countries, this is not only perceived positively. “There is concern that once the geopolitical situation eases, no one will be interested in Africa anymore.”

The South Africa expert recommends that one should not downplay the mysterious visit of the “Lady R”, but rather examine exactly what happened at night in the port of Simon’s Town. But the West should not try to push the South Africans away from the Russians. In this way, the opposite is achieved, says Müller.

The “Lady R” is now thousands of nautical miles away from South Africa. On January 25, she anchored off Sudan in the Red Sea. The remaining route should look like this: via the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, the Aegean, Istanbul and the Black Sea back to Russia.