ANC’s love affair with Russia

A cynical way of looking at the declaration this week by Moscow that South Africa is one of the country’s “military allies” might be that the Russians must be desperate if they think our under-funded and crumbling SA National Defence Force (SANDF) can come to the aid of anyone.

Yet, the fact that Defence Minister Thandi Modise attended a military conference in Moscow, with other Russian allies, shows clearly that the ANC still has emotional attachments to Russia, because its operatives were trained in the Soviet Union in the apartheid years.

However, the visit also indicates that the ANC wants to chart a course for our country away from what it perceives as the “war-mongering” ways of the United States and Europe.

That, of course, has implications for future relations with those Western countries, who are major trading partners for South Africa. So far, the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) grouping has failed to offer our country any reasonable alternative to those Western economic links.

The irony of the decrepit current state of the SANDF and the visit to Moscow is that, back in the ’90s, the Russians (or what was known then as the Confederation of Independent States, which formed after the collapse of the Soviet Union) had proposed a comprehensive arms package for SA.

The fact the SANDF went with expensive European weapons systems instead of cheaper, simpler Russian ones was, possibly, because the Europeans had money for bribes, whereas the broke former Soviets did not. So much then for revolutionary loyalty.

We wonder if the Russians have learned by now that looting trumps ideology and political loyalty when it comes to how the ANC views the world… So, the ANC might turn out to be fair-weather friends to the Russians – particularly if someone else greases their palms… ANC’s love affair with Russia

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