South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday said bystander countries were suffering due to sanctions imposed against Russia, reported Yahoo News. He called for talks as the African Union (AU) prepared a mission to facilitate dialogue between Moscow and Kyiv.
South Africa has close historical ties with Moscow due to the Soviet Union’s support for the anti-apartheid struggle. The African country also abstained from a United Nations vote denouncing the invasion of Ukraine and has resisted calls to condemn Russia.
The European Union (EU) has aggressively imposed sanctions and severed economic ties with Russia as a punishment for its military operations in Ukraine.
The South African president claims that the strategy to punish Moscow was causing collateral damage.
“Even those countries that are either bystanders or not part of the conflict are also going to suffer from the sanctions that have been imposed against Russia,” Ramaphosa said during a news conference in Pretoria.
Africa, which has already seen millions pushed into extreme poverty by the COVID-19 pandemic, has been hit hard due to rising food costs caused in part due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
Notably, Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a third of global wheat and barley, and two-thirds of the world’s exports of edible sunflower oil. The war has damaged Ukraine’s ports and agricultural infrastructure and that is likely to limit agricultural production for years.
The South African president insists that the only way to resolve the war is through dialogue and Africa “does have a role to play because it has access to both leaders (of Ukraine and Russia).”
Ramaphosa has been invited to attend the G7 summit being hosted by Germany next month.
On Sunday, Senegal’s President Macky Sall, who is the current chairman of Africa’s top political bloc, the African Union, said he was preparing to visit Kyiv and Moscow to foster peace.
