Ukraine’s ambassador to Pretoria, Liubov Abravitova
When President Cyril Ramaphosa and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy finally spoke on Wednesday evening, the call from Kyiv had to be delayed by some 10 minutes.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Pretoria, Liubov Abravitova, divulged this detail to illustrate that, from Ukraine’s side, the impediments to the call have been dictated only by the logistics of war, not any measure of diplomatic push and pull.
“Because of our situation it had to be delayed … because you cannot predict the situation in which you find yourself, when you are scheduling a call now,” Abravitova told the Mail & Guardian on Thursday.
She expressed relief that the two leaders spoke, some seven weeks after Ramaphosa spoke to Vladimir Putin in the early days of the war, and said Zelenskiy drove home the point that his people were the victims of a war of Russian volition, in which the goalposts were constantly shifting.
During the call, Zelenskiy took care to inquire about the devastating flooding in KwaZulu-Natal, but his message about the conflict that has triggered the worst refugee crisis since World War II was plain.
“I believe that the Ukrainian president was absolutely clear that this is the Russians’ aggression and they were discussing that exactly,” Abravitova said.
“I believe that the call is a very important step to establish the dialogue that was not existing on the level of presidents for a very long time, and only through dialogue, consistent and stable dialogue, can we understand and explain to each other what the positions are.
“My intention is to build bridges, and when I say my intention, I mean on behalf of the president and the government of Ukraine.”
But, she cautioned, she would not anticipate how the discussion will “influence or not influence” South Africa’s stance in international organisations, while hoping that the two presidents will continue talking and find a common understanding.
She defined this as shared values, something Ukraine is aiming for with all countries that it engages with.
“We need to call the crisis a crisis, the war a war; we need to see the aggressor as the aggressor and we have to accuse to accuse the aggressor and we have to say that all of us, the members of the UN, are following the same rules but also having the same values and the same principles.
“This is something that we want to see from every country, notwithstanding whether it is big or small.”
The phone call came as Russia’s siege of Mariupol nears a tipping point.
In early March, during an emergency special session of the UN general assembly, South Africa failed to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Some 10 days later, Ramaphosa condemned war in general terms and said Pretoria could not condone the use of force and the flouting of international law. He added to this a history lesson about the Cold War and cited former top US diplomats as cautioning that any eastwards expansion of Nato was always going to carry dire risks.
In the same breath, while answering questions in the National Assembly, the South African president disparaged mounting international sanctions against Russia.
“We also need to recognise that coercive measures such as sanctions outside the legal prescripts of the UN may serve to prolong and intensify the conflict,” he said.
On Thursday, Abravitova disagreed.
“Sanctions are important, because they are working against Russia and they are not allowing Russia to kill our people more and more. They are working and that is why we are saying that we need more sanctions to destroy Russia’s ability to attack anyone in the region,” she said.
“The work of the diplomats is to build bridges and to establish dialogue and I am very happy that this initial dialogue has happened and I will do my best to support this dialogue. I believe that this is in the interest of our nation.”
Abravitova has been bluntly accused of lying by South African foreign ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela in the to and fro that eventually culminated in the call, but tactfully shared credit for it happening with South African foreign affairs officials and the local ambassador to Ukraine.
“It is absolutely clear that on that side, the ambassador was also working to make this important call happen. We have to look at the situation, what is happening in Ukraine today, and those who are trying to speculate, possibly they are not clearly understanding the scope of destruction, of war, of danger, of humanitarian catastrophe.”
She added, however, talking about Monyela’s Twitter post: “I think that the best defence is attack.
“I did not accuse the department; I called for the dialogue, because I needed an urgent dialogue to have the issues that I can solve for my people, here in South Africa to have them resolved. From my side, my call was ‘talk to him’.”
Abarovita said she was alarmed by Russia’s comments that it was waging war not on Ukraine, but on Europe, terming these “dangerous” and a means of trying to dissuade the continent from lending support to the invaded country
“The war is happening on my land. Our people are trying to protect themselves, are dying. We cannot predict what tomorrow Russia will invent, what cause they will invent to make further and harsher aggression, and whether they will stop in Ukraine or not.
“It is changing every day … some world leaders are wondering what his next stage will be because he is unpredictable.”
Russia’s patent nuclear threat posed a risk not only to Europe but to the world, Abarovita stressed.
And she hopes that those countries whose willingness to punish Russia with sanctions or to help Ukraine with weapons has been inhibited by fears of the economic fallout, would think of the long term implications of the war.
“What will be the consequences for these nations that are now thinking of short-term savings, what will be the repercussions if the world allows itself to lose Ukraine? I think that the price will be much higher — our system of international laws.”
Ramaphosa’s office and the department of international relations and co-operation confirmed the call, but declined further comment.
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