Arresting Vladimir Putin in South Africa would be 'declaration of war', says Ramaphosa
Arresting Vladimir Putin in South Africa would be 'declaration of war', says Ramaphosa
South Africa's president is at odds with opposition politicians weeks before Russian leader's visit.
lol, do it anyway. let's see russia hike its troops all the way to the southern tip of Africa. Putin can barely muster enough fighters and ammo for one war on his own border. let's see him try to fight another one half a planet away, lmao. it might as well be in space-- at least there are some russians there already! 🤣
This. The big bad menace that could have invaded Europe any time in the last decades, stumbled in its own front yard and broke its teeth.
lol, what an amusing metaphor. much better than the "drunk bear in a china shop" I was thinking of.
Russia could use its mercenaries aka PMC that is has scattred all over the African continent.
The thing about mercenaries is that they will only fight so long as they're getting paid. Nobody wants rubles, so they would expect currency conversion, and this is while the Russian economy is in the toilet. Russia also has a bad history in terms of keeping their word even if you could trust that the country weren't in a spiral, so most PMCs aren't exactly gonna get excited for any deal that doesn't include payment upfront. If Putin is jailed, I think we're more likely to see a power vacuum in Moscow than people scrambling to free him and go to war against South Africa. Putin only has power so long as he is surrounded by protectors loyal to him. I'm not sure any of them are that loyal to him at this point. He's fucked the country with this invasion, and he's getting old, and the rumor is that he's very sick and possibly terminal, but that part could be propaganda designed to get loyalists to second guess their allegiance.
Although, to be fair, Russians haven't exactly made a lot of good decisions lately, so maybe there are enough ignorant dumbasses in the region to decide to go to war. Devout nationalists might continue to fight despite empty bellies, but they won't fight well.
Leaving the country is probably a terminal mistake at this point.
Just call it a special military operation, nbd.
What does South Africa get out of him visiting? Disregarding the idea of peace talks.
They get money and Putin can pretent he still has influence around the world.
Doesn't that bet on Putin still being alive in the long term, or Russia's next leader still being aan ally? Seems short sighted.
It seems you're not really familar with what's happening in Africa right now and I can't fault you for that because Western media has been terrible about reporting about what we're doing to Africa. (Please excuse me if I'm completely off here, I can only go with what you provided thus far.)
According to my research a lot of countries on the African continent are actively working towards dedollarization by building independent central bank transfer infrastructure to finally get rid of the shackles of Western neo-colonial soft power and China/Russia/BRICS are a god-sent for them.
And thinking that Putin doesn't have influence (and thus, he has to pretend otherwise) is kinda... ignorant?
Without looking I'd guess trade deals
North America and Europe stopped supporting African countries, they decided to turn to other rich countries instead.
I was just looking it up for South Africa
The EU is South Africa’s most important development partner. Its €281 million bilateral cooperation programme is reinforced by grants for thematic focal areas. Further, the European Investment Bank makes available €462 million in long-term loans.
(I don't know much about the subject, this is from a quick Google search)
Did they do that for money or disagreements (e.g. treatment of LGBT people)?
It's more like we made promises we didn't keep (like transferring financial aid, investments in infrastructure projects, etc) and instead Western countries still bleed part of Africa's economy dry and I can understand that they're fed up with it. I only hope that China and Russia won't just be a wolf in sheep's disguise, since they're also imperialist and it'd be naive to expect them to help Africa become a strong contender to their economies.
Declaration of war on Russia? And who would intervene across so many kilometers? The Russian Fleet? Wagner?
As far as I know, the Kremlin stated that they never threatened South Africa with war in any way and they simply announced that Putin would participate remotely, so the question is moot.
Let's just list the 4 things that wouldn't be a declaration of war against Russia.
is it just me or is this a diplomatic way to tell Putin to just stay in Russia without telling him "you're not invited any longer"? To me it sounds like "uuh.... man.... if you REALLY want to come you definitely won't be arrested here. Not by me, I mean. Oh, I got pressures, POWERFUL pressures and you ending up arrested or worse isn't off the table but hey... do come and visit anyway if you want. We're cool right?"
They pretty much begged him not to come before as they are obligated to arrest him themselves due to ICC arrest warrant.
Makes sense, though. Why escalate things unnecessarily if he can just attend remotely and have Lavrov take care of the backroom relationships?
War, like what’s happening in Ukraine?