From left: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Andrzej Lange) | South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo: Waldo Swiegers / Bloomberg via Getty Images) 
Ukrainians are dismayed that South Africa has expressed support for what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called a “destructive” Chinese-Brazilian plan to end Russia’s war with Ukraine.
The Ukrainians were alarmed to see South Africa attending a meeting last week of 17 developing countries on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly where Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Brazilian foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim drummed up support for their plan.
The plan calls for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to end the war. But what concerns Ukraine is that the plan also calls for “no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting”. Kyiv regards this as an implicit demand that it should stop fighting to expel Russia from the 25% of Ukrainian territory Russia now occupies and should therefore cede that land to Moscow.
After the meeting at the UN, SA joined other nations in signing a communique which called for the Charter of the United Nations, including the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, to be respected. But it also noted the China-Brazil peace plan and implicitly endorsed its principles, including the “non-expansion” call.
South Africa has been participating since July 2023 in the international discussions on Zelensky’s peace plan. Russia has not attended so far because Ukraine believed if it came in it would simply demand the right to Crimea and the four other provinces of eastern Ukraine its forces now largely occupy.
South Africa declined to sign the communique which was widely endorsed at a summit of the nations participating in Zelensky’s peace talks in Switzerland in July 2024. Pretoria said it had done so because Israel had participated in the summit and because the communique had condemned Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s Zaphorizhzha nuclear power plant without calling for universal nuclear disarmament.
However, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ronald Lamola later told Daily Maverick the reason SA did not sign the communique was because it believed Russia should participate in the talks.
Read more: South Africa rejects outcome of Zelensky’s global peace summit
Ukraine has said that Russia would be invited to participate in a second unscheduled summit, but Moscow has said it will not attend.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya defended his government’s support for the China-Brazil peace plan.
“We have been consistent in expressing our support for all efforts aimed at assisting the warring parties reach a peaceful settlement to the conflict,” he told Daily Maverick.
“Ultimately, all peace proposals or plans must be tabled to both Ukraine and Russia to engage over and seek an agreement. Whether it’s the China-Brazil peace plan or the Africa Peace Initiative, what is important is for both leaders of Russia and Ukraine to engage openly and in good faith over the fate of their countries and people.”
We put it to Magwenya, however, that Ukraine objected to the China-Brazil peace plan because it implied that Ukraine would have to accept Russia’s occupation of a large part of its territory.
“Yes, President Zelensky expressed his discomfort with that aspect,” Magwenya said.
“However, at this stage, there is nothing that is cast in stone and cannot be discussed or ironed out. The principal focus is to get the two parties to the conflict talking. The details of various plans will be dealt with in negotiations.”
Zelensky rejects plan
Zelensky has specifically addressed the call to get both Russia and Ukraine around a table to talk and that the “details” can be discussed later.
In an interview with the Brazilian news outlet Metropoles, he said: “What does it mean just to sit down and talk? He [Russian President Vladimir Putin] is a killer.
“He has to take steps, to show that he wants to end the war. We can’t say we need to just ‘take steps towards each other’. He occupied our territory, killed people and now [Brazilian President] Lula says let them just talk together. I could simply sit down and talk to Lula, because Lula is not an enemy to me.
“Ukraine is at war with Russia. And if you don’t support Russia you need to help us to stop the war.”
He said the Chinese-Brazilian plan was “mostly pro-Russian” as it called for a compromise from Ukraine, which had been fighting to expel invading Russian forces from its territory.
“They say Ukraine must agree on a compromise. What compromise? To give up its lands, forget that they are killing our people? What sort of compromise exactly? Compromise is something unacceptable here. You want us to forget murders, forget everything? I think this view is destructive.”
“The proposal by China and Brazil is just a political statement, not a real initiative,” Zelensky said. “How can you propose an initiative without seeking the opinion of Ukraine?”
Read more: War in Ukraine
The Ukrainian Association of South Africa said: “We hope that South African foreign policy will be grounded in the South African Constitution, which upholds human rights and a rules-based order, rather than solely focusing on ‘making two parties talk to each other’.
“It is harmful to suggest that the peace proposal concerns only ‘the fate of their (Russia and Ukraine) countries and people’.
“For over 900 days, Russia has bombed Ukrainian territory, killed civilians and abducted children. Ukraine has never attacked Russia, and equating the aggressor with the victim undermines human rights and a rules-based order.
“Restoring a just and long-lasting peace is essential to re-establishing the international rules-based order. Accepting the Russia-promoted ‘might is right’ principle is destructive for all nations globally.” DM