JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
A Ukrainian presidential advisor and negotiator has rejected African leaders' involvement in European affairs.
This comes as an African
delegation led by President Cyril Ramaphosa travelled to Ukraine and Russia to
broker peace between the two countries.
Mykhailo Podolyak, said in an
interview that Ramaphosa and his delegation of African leaders, had no business
being in their country to negotiate a peace settlement between the two
countries.
Podolyak is known as one of
the advisers to the Chief of Staff of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
He said African leaders had
neither the capability nor the power to get involved in matters they knew
nothing about, adding that this was beyond their understanding.
Ukrainian media quoted
Podolyak as saying Africa and its leaders were using the failed trip to achieve
their geopolitical goals in favour of Russia, which provides Africa with food
supplies.
"The African delegation
had no goal of settling the conflict or finding a solution. Obviously, this is
not their task. It is not at their level or competency. They just want to be on
the misinformation agenda and resolve their own issues, like the increasing
resources they receive from Russia, including food supplies," he said.
Podolyak said the trip was a
mere fishing expedition for information on behalf of Russia.
"The most important thing
that they had to do was win the information task in favour of Russia by saying
they don’t see any missiles fired in the air," he said.
This comes after a backlash to
Ramaphosa's spokesperson Vincent Magwenya saying he had not heard any explosion
denoting a missile attack in Kyiv while he was in the Ukrainian city with the
African delegation.
According to the Kyiv Post,
its reporters, including "every other media organisation present in the
city – saw and heard the missiles in the skies over the capital and witnessed
several loud explosions as they were intercepted."
Magwenya maintained that he
had not denied there had been a missile attack: "I didn’t deny anything.
All I said was that, and I still say it, despite the insults and vitriolic
responses aimed at me. I did not hear any explosion, see any missile, or hear
any siren."
Many South Africans have
slammed Podolyak’s comments as yet another imperialistic and racial onslaught
on the continent.
His comments come on the back
of what President Cyril Ramaphosa head of presidential security, Wally Rhoode
describing as “sabotage and racism” meted out to the South African team of
advisers, security detail which included journalists who were prevented from
leaving Polish capital of Warsaw on Thursday.
In videos released by the
reporters on social media, Ramaphosa’s head of security, pointed to racism and
sabotage as reasons for having been prevented from disembarking the aircraft.
Rhoode told journalists on
Thursday that the Polish government was placing Ramaphosa’s life at risk,
adding that this was the first time he had encountered such a situation while
having a diplomatic passport. Rhoode said the Polish police had said their
South African counterparts did not have permits for entry to the country.
“They are delaying us. They
are putting the life of our president in jeopardy because we could have been in
Kyiv this afternoon already,” he said.
“I want you guys to see this,
how racist they are. When we started to open our packages, they wanted to
confiscate our firearms, which is why we had to put them back,” he said.
On Sunday, the Economic
Freedom Fighters called for the South African government downgrade the Poland
embassy following the recent “racist” incident.
The party blamed the events on
the non-aligned stance adopted by President Cyril Ramaphosa in the
Russia-Ukraine war.
However, Magwenya who alog
with the President were hosing joint working visit by Prime Minister Rutte of
the Netherlands and Prime Minister Frederiksen of Denmark had not returned The
Star’s enquiries on the recent comments by one of Zalenskyy’s adivisers.
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