Ukraine: Pandor rejects EU appeal to persuade Russia to... - Daily Maverick

South Africa has declined an appeal from the European Union to use its influence over Russia to persuade it to end its war against Ukraine.

EU vice-president and foreign minister Josep Borrell made the public appeal to his counterpart, Naledi Pandor, at the end of the 15th South Africa-European Union ministerial meeting, which they co-chaired in Pretoria on Saturday .

The EU has fully condemned Russia’s aggression and many of its members are arming Ukraine to repel the Russian invasion.

This week some of them agreed to send tanks to Ukraine.

By contrast, South Africa has maintained a non-aligned stance.

It has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion at all and this week, after meeting Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in Pretoria, Pandor said she had not even repeated to him the call her department made on Russia the day the invasion began to “withdraw immediately” from Ukraine and to respect that country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Borrell said in a press conference at the end of Friday’s meeting that whatever anyone else might like to call it, Russia had mounted “a full-scale invasion of a foreign country and an attempt to destroy it, killing Ukrainian civilians, destroying civilian homes, hospital power plants, and all kinds of civilian infrastructure”.

“Facts are facts.