US ambassador ‘shooting blanks’ in guns for Russia claim

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Local arms experts have shot holes in the United States ambassador’s claims that South Africa sold arms and ammunition to Russia in December 2022. 

This follows the Russian embassy’s own statement on Wednesday dismissing US ambassador Reuben Brigety’s claims that weapons were loaded on the sanctioned ship the Lady R.

In the statement released on its website, the Russian embassy said Brigety should explain why Russia would need South African-produced arms and ammunition matching neither the types nor the calibres of the systems in service with Russia’s armed forces.

It also questioned how the “minuscule” amount of “arms and ammunition” that was allegedly “uploaded onto the vessel” would influence the situation on the battlefield in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

While the US embassy says it stands by Brigety’s claim, the Russian embassy characterised the ambassador’s statement as a “fabrication” aimed at swaying South Africa from its non-aligned position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. 

According to the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms, in 2022, South Africa imported four pistol barrels, 55 shotguns and 240 rifles from Russia. There were no recorded sales of weapons from South Africa to Russia during this period, according to the register.

Arms control expert Guy Lamb told the Mail & Guardian that it was highly unlikely that weapons and ammunition had been loaded on the Lady R in Simon’s Town for a number of reasons.

South African arms manufacturers produced ammunition which is compatible with Nato standards and not with the firearms used by the Russian military, Lamb said.

“Nato standard is what we export,” he said. “Russia is not one of our export markets. Russia has its own arms industry. China is a far more likely source.”

Kobus Marais, the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) spokesperson on defence, concurred that most armaments manufactured by South Africa were in line with Nato standards.

“There is only one calibre that I know of that we can manufacture in South Africa, whether we do or not, and that is bullets for AK47s, which are similar to our light machine guns,” he said.

The South African arms industry had been in “serious decline” for several decades, Lamb said, with state-owned entities such as Denel and Armscor losing a significant amount of their capacity to manufacture ammunition.

There was better capacity to export armoured personnel carriers and drone technology, but not the battle gear and ammunition that had, according to Brigety, been loaded onto the Lady R. 

Lamb added that smuggling weapons through the Simon’s Town naval base on a sanctioned ship, which was being tracked and “had so many eyes on it”, would be far less effective than doing so at Durban or Richards Bay harbours.

The Lady R had also made other stops before and after docking in Simon’s Town, visiting both Beira in Mozambique and Port Sudan before entering the Suez Canal late last year.

“There may have been arms loaded for Russia or for delivery to another destination, or arms picked up at another destination with effective controls and moved on to Russia,” Lamb said. “Not enough questions are being asked about that.”

“There may have been arms and ammunition on the vessel, but whether or not they were loaded on at Simon’s Town still needs to be determined.”

Lamb said it was understood that ammunition for South African special forces weapons ordered from Russia before the invasion of Ukraine may have been unloaded and that this may be the reason for the secrecy around the Lady R’s docking.

“Given the theft of large amounts of ammunition from the Durban harbour [during the riots in July 2021], they may have wanted to use a more security facility, an area over which they had more control,” he said.

Government sources were adamant that Washington has not shown South Africa the evidence it claims to have, or indicated how it was obtained. 

Observers have suggested that if there is any proof it would be the product of satellite surveillance of the Lady R, which is owned by a company that has been placed under sanctions by the US treasury and state department.

The US’s stance was that it would only release evidence in the context of “a credible investigation”. It did not qualify what that constitutes and it was Ramaphosa’s reflex to appoint a retired judge to look into the matter.

It is understood that no names have been put forward to lead the investigation. 

The ‘Lady R’, a cargo ship owned by a company under sanctions by the US government, docked at the naval base in Simon’s Town harbour on 6 December last year. Photo: Jaco Marais/Gallo Images

Zane Dangor, the director general of the department of international relations, and other government officials, have confirmed that the investigation will proceed despite Defence Minister Thandi Modise’s blunt assurances that no weapons were sold to Russia.

A well-placed source said it was wise to pursue an inquiry to determine what had transpired in the Simon’s Town harbour that night because, if one accepted the minister’s say-so, this still did not preclude the possibility that arms were smuggled onto the ship.

Another said without such an investigation, South Africa could not hope to contain the wrangle with Washington and the damage it has done.

It is understood that European missions in South Africa welcome the undertaking of an inquiry and will watch closely how it unfolds.

For now, they regard the diplomatic row as a bilateral matter, but Europe will not be indifferent if arms were shipped to Russia, given the unequivocal commitments of support given to Ukraine last week by several leaders, among them German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron.

The DA said the government should realise that what it risked with any misstep was sanctions from countries importing beneficiated South African products, whereas its allies in Brics (Brazil, Russia, India and China) bought mostly raw materials.

“One must remember that by far the majority of our exports to the United States and the European Union are all value-added products. In other words, jobs were created in the process, and whatever we export to China and even Russia, is raw materials,” Marais said.

“So what we stand to lose is incalculable, even if we just lose Agoa,” he added, referring to the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act, which gives African countries preferential access to the US market.

In an interview with the M&G on Tuesday, Modise flat out denied South Africa had sold arms to Russia. 

“I can tell you that categorically, we did not send fokkol, not even a piece of Chappies [bubblegum] to Russia. We should be left alone,” she said.

Modise said she was frustrated by the “anti-Russian phobia” in South Africa. 

“Militaries have relationships. Not long ago, the Russians were here. They had an exercise. In the next two years one of these two countries will be hosting an exercise. The planning is two, three years ahead of time. That is besides that there will be other issues which bind the two nations together,” she said.

Modise said the government did not understand why, every time usual business between two countries and two defence forces took place, South Africa should be told that the “US is threatening us to run away”.

The defence minister, who came under heavy criticism from opposition parties when she attended Moscow’s conference on international security last year, said she expected the same outrage when she attended it again this year.

In an interview with news channel Newzroom Afrika, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana — who is part of the inter-ministerial committee charged with looking into the country’s options ahead of the Brics summit in Durban in August, which Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend — said he was first made aware of the US allegation about the Lady R during a visit by his US counterpart, Janet Yellen, in January.

“I undertook to investigate and I spoke to the president about it and the president told me what he is doing to investigate. First he asked his own ministers to give their versions and they did and the Americans have stuck to their version,” Godongwana said.

He said it was then that Ramaphosa decided to set up the inquiry to make sense of the divergent view. The president also tasked a delegation to head to the US to allay concerns Washington had over South Africa’s relationship with Russia. 

“My belief is that we have crossed an area where there is tension between ourselves and the US government,” Godongwana said, adding that the US was not worried about South Africa’s position on the war. 

“If we begin to provide arms to Russia you are crossing that line of neutrality, that is what they were worried about.”