The crew that was meant to accompany President Cyril Ramaphosa to the war-torn Ukraine and Russia is back home, after been stuck in Poland for the rest of its visit.
The almost 120 member team comprising 11 local journalists and over 90 South African Police Service (SAPS) and South African National Defence Force (SANDF) members were denied passage to both Ukraine and Russia due to the nature of weapons they were carrying in their flight.
They arrived just after 21:00 on Sunday night at the Waterkloof Airforce Base in Pretoria.
Security personnel stranded as President Ramaphosa’s entourage faces travel setbacks:
Meanwhile, President Ramaphosa is also back in the country after what he described as a successful mission. He was with other six Africa heads of state on the African Peace Mission to meet with both Russian President, Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymir Zelenskyy.
After meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday, African heads of state from South Africa, Zambia, Comoros, Senegal, and the heads of government from Congo Brazzaville, Egypt, and Uganda met with President Vladimir Putin on Saturday.
While the mission’s ultimate goal is to help end the war, Ramaphosa believes the African group has made a positive contribution by being the only one that has had back-to-back engagements with the leaders of Ukraine and Russia.
“I think the most important outcome of these discussions was: One, the willingness to talk. The other one is the willingness to go through the various issues that we raised and the commitment that we will engage further, and as it is now, the continent is going to have a summit with Russia, which is the second summit. The first one having been held a number of years ago, and we will continue our discussions with President Putin then, and in the intervening period, we will be talking to President Zelenskyy because we would like to know his response to some of the other issues we raised.”
President Ramaphosa on Ukraine-Russian peace mission:
