South African government faces mounting pressure over Russian ship, alleged arms delivery

Fourteen days after sanctioned Russian cargo ship the Lady R docked at the naval harbour at Simon’s Town in South Africa for three days, the government has yet to deliver an explanation.

The Lady R, which is sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department, was originally travelling to Dar-es- Salaam in Tanzania when, according to local media, it switched off its Automatic Identification System (AIS), a type of tracking system that provides GPS coordinates, identification and other information about the ship to other vessels and coastal authorities automatically.

Citing the South African Maritime Safety Authority, local media reported that the ship did not put out a distress signal, dispelling theories that it was in distress and needed help.

The Lady R was eventually towed by South African National Defence Force (SANDF) boats into the naval harbour at Simon’s Town under cover of darkness between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. local time, but was spotted by members of the public due to electricity in the surrounding area being shut down as part of regular “load shedding.”

The floodlights at the harbour, however, were on, according to eyewitness accounts, photographs and local media reports.

It’s there that cargo was unloaded from the ship and carted off under armed guard in SANDF trucks, detailed in local media.

The Lady R anchored at Simon’s Town from Tuesday Dec. 6 to Friday Dec. 9, before heading back the way it came - towards Turkey, and ostensibly, the Black Sea, as seen on marine traffic websites.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to CTV News by time of publication.

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Alarm bells went off for official member of the opposition and shadow minister for defence and military veterans Kobus Marais of South Africa’s Democratic Alliance party, who was tipped off by several sources -- civilian, military and official -- of the ship’s arrival.

“Late Tuesday evening I got a message…that alerted me to the fact a commercial vessel was being accompanied by [our] naval vessels into False Bay and docking in Simon’s Town naval base,” Marais told CTV News in an interview Monday.

“Tuesday night, the on-board cranes were starting to work and certainly were busy offloading stuff, there were trucks with containers,” he said. “During the day trucks were parked outside of the base and guarded by uniformed members.”

Marais said the Lady R was most likely turned away from the regular commercial ports of South Africa because it was under sanctions, which begs the question as to why it was then allowed to dock at a private military yard.

Spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, David Feldmann, said that the consulate had warned against anyone supporting the Lady R.

“We had indicated the vessel was sanctioned under U.S. law because the ship is part of Russia’s military export-import business and had cautioned that entities supporting the vessel could run afoul of U.S. sanctions,” he told local news outlet News24.

The U.S. State Department designated the Russian Ministry of Defence’s shipping company and six others that transport weapons and other military equipment for sanctions in May of this year.

America has requested countries deny U.S.-sanctioned Russian vessels entry into ports or territorial waters and deny them services like resupply and refueling.

However they are concerned that vessels identified as property of the sanctioned companies continue to carry military-related goods on behalf of the Russian Government, according to a State Department spokesperson.

Marais said he reached out to South Africa’s Minister of Defence, Thandi Modise of the ruling African National Congress Party, an appointee of recently re-elected President Cyril Ramaphosa, as well as other high ranking officials who “indicated by Friday, they will issue a statement.”

The statement from the Department of Defence never materialized, and Marais is doubtful that Modise, and by extension the government, will be transparent any time soon.

“I wrote an official letter to both the Minister of Defence and the Secretary of Defence requesting the information and giving my point of view that if this is a legal transaction…why the secrecy, why do this in the middle of the night? That clearly supports the narrative that something has been done irregularly and most probably illegal as well,” he said, noting an incident in 2020 when Cuban medicine was illegally imported by the Defence Force using fraudulent documents, which prompted a criminal investigation and the medicine being returned.

Modise did not return CTV News’ request for comment by time of publication.

“I know that this vessel was not granted approval to enter the naval base without very high level authority,” Marais said. “With the kind of problems it can cause for South Africa on the trade side and the international relations side…My expectation is, if it was not the Minister of Defence, someone else has overstepped their boundaries.”

While defence analysts in particular have been watching the situation unfold, with rampant speculation about the Lady R’s cargo and potential ramifications for South Africa, Marais is steadfast in what he believes the delivery was.

“Clearly we are aware that munitions were offloaded, clearly we are aware that they were transported and delivered to a specific ammunition depot in South Africa,” Marais said, citing his own intelligence gathering.

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His theories have not been confirmed by the government, a frustrating aspect for defence analyst Helmoed Heitman.

“Why was the AIS switched off, why did she only work cargo at night (under flood lighting when the whole town was dark because of load shedding!!) [sic] and why the government has so far declined to make any sort of statement, are all good questions for which I have no answer,” Heitman said in a series of messages to CTV News over the weekend.

And while Marais estimated that six or seven 20-foot boxes were carried off the ship, questions remain over whether anything was loaded on in return.

Local defence companies in the area surrounding Cape Town and Simon’s Town are subsidiaries of larger European corporations, companies that would not risk breaking the sanctions placed on Russia, according to defence analyst and author Dean Wingrin.

“Whilst South Africa does design and manufacture tactical and larger UAVs (drones), it is not a big player…these are also produced in very small quantities. I'm not sure any South African company can supply loitering munitions (so called suicide drones) [sic]. Although we do have design capability for smart bombs and missiles,” Wingrin said in messages to CTV News.

All of the experts and defence analysts CTV News spoke to noted that the South African Special Forces do use weapons from so-called “eastern bloc” countries and have been known to import weapons and tactical gear, such as Russian and Chinese-made small arms, but those are generally sourced by Bulgaria or China.

“South Africa, especially in terms of its military-military relations, has always sought to tread a fine line between the West, broadly, and China and Russia,” said Director at African Defence Review Darren Olivier in messages to CTV News. “Hence its hosting of exercises with all, and its ongoing use of Western military equipment and doctrine while also having exchanges with and receiving some instruction from Chinese and Russian forces.

“Given that some of the trucks and other assets used were registered to the South African military, my money would be (on the cargo) being something for them. That, too, is curious, as the Russian Federation is not a traditional supplier to the South African military, nor a traditional recipient of South African munitions,” he continued.

Olivier said it’s plausible the import of cargo might have been something legally defensible, even if the manner of its unloading was “questionable in other ways.”

“What makes this so suspicious is the covert way in which it was conducted…cargo movements under the cover of darkness, and an unjustifiable refusal by any government department to explain the situation,” he said.

As for any cargo loaded onto the Lady R, so far there is no paper trail.

The governing body on armaments and exporting weapons in South Africa, the NCACC (National Conventional Arms Control Committee), has not approved any arms supply to both Russia and Ukraine, according to Marais.

“There is a theory that [in return] if it was small components or microchips, South Africa might have been used as a decoy,” he said. “But it would probably be much easier and quicker to do that by plane.”

National Secretary of the South African Defence Force Union, Pikkie Greeff, told CTV News in an interview Monday that if Lady R’s cargo was ammunition or other tactical components, the trucks headed north after being loaded could point to a specific ammunition depot used by the SANDF.

“That is the closest depot to the border with Mozambique, where at this stage, South Africa has soldiers as part of a contingent…who are deployed in the northern regions of Mozambique to combat radical Islamic insurgents,” Greeff said.

“For some inexplicable reason, they tried to keep this docking (of the Lady R) secret when it was in plain sight…one can’t imagine why they wouldn’t just simply fly it in by airplane instead of such a stealth method,” he continued.

Greeff said that while the SANDF union is apolitical, he thinks the ruling ANC party and Minister Modise are “incredibly grateful” for the holidays being so close and their national conference just wrapping up providing a shield from scrutiny.

“The Ministry of Defence in the end is going to be forced by law to provide a response,” he said.

“In the end somebody is going to be forced to tell the truth, and the true story – that is going to place some people, I suspect, in a very uncomfortable decision.”