NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 16 — South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa arrived in Kyiv Friday on a mission to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine alongside six other African delegations even as his security chief claimed sabotage in Poland.
The South African presidency confirmed Ramaphosa’s arrival on Twitter posting a video footage of Ramaphosa alighting from a train after travelling via Poland.
“His Excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa has arrived at Nemishaeve Railway Station in Ukraine and is received by Ukraine’s Special Envoy for Africa & the Middle East Ambassador Maksym Subhk and South African Ambassador to Ukraine Mr Andre Groenewald,” a tweet read.
Ramaphosa together with Senegal’s Macky Sall, Zambia’s Hakainde HichilemA, Comoros’AZALI Assoumani and a delegation from Egypt, Congo- Brazzaville and Uganda, were expected to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy before proceeding to Russia for talks with President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Saturday.
The South African presidency posted footage of Ramaphosa in the Bucha area near Kyiv after travelling via Poland.
However, at the time of his arrival in Ukraine, Ramaphosa’s security detail, the Presidential Protection Services (PPU), and journalists embedded to his advance team were yet to be allowed to disembark from a separate plane in Warsaw and were stuck for more than 24 hours.
Advance team intercepted
Major General Wally Rhoode, the Head of PPU said that Poland denied them clearance to disembark after questioning the validity of the permits to transport their weapons through the central European country.
He stated that when they started to open the cargo carrying their weapons, Polish authorities wanted to confiscate them forcing them to put them back.
Major General Rhoode pointed that they had been engaging with Polish authorities for the last two weeks in relation to the trip and suggested that the act might be sabotage.
“We don’t know what changed, we were shocked when we landed here,” General Rhoode told journalists Thursday in Warsaw Airport.
