Tag: russia

What’s the plan here?

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South Africa is once again demonstrating its neutrality over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This comes just a few days after it was revealed that SA had been following a non-partisan approach by supplying arms and ammunition to Russia.

Now we’ve sent the head of the SANDF (the SA armed forces) to Russia to “visit educational institutions of the ground forces and enterprises of the military-industrial complex” there and “further increase cooperation between ground forces in various fields”.

Thank goodness we’re not taking sides here.

It’s not like we can afford to be doing this. The Rand is tanking already because of loadshedding and the arms shipments row. To add fuel to the fire right now seems both deliberately provocative and deliberately stupid.

South African bilateral trade with Russia amounts to around $1.3 billion. In comparison, bilateral trade with the UK is $10.1 billion, the US is around $17 billion and the EU over $30 billion. To risk all of that for Vlad’s pocket change means that there’s clearly something else happening behind the scenes. Is that something SA owes Russia? Or is it something the Ramaphosa owes Putin?
Because we can talk all day long about how much we abhor the colonial West and and all that they stand for, but that talk is cheap when we are still doing 50x more trade with them each year than we are with Mother Russia. And that’s a lot of money we simply can’t afford to lose.

Maybe the idea is to just run what’s left of the country into the ground before they get voted out at the next election. Or maybe this is actually an election strategy: a vote winner. The anti-imperialists will go for it, of course, but it remains to be seen how the incoming hyper-inflation will attract any normal person to vote for the ANC.

So… what is the plan here? Because I’m equally mystified and concerned.

Day 709 – I had a yacht

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Last night’s dreams were interesting. I had a yacht. “Had”, not just because the dream was last night, but also because it was one of those super yachts and it had just been confiscated or impounded in the swanky harbour in which I had recently moored it.

Am I now worse off? I didn’t have a yacht when I went to bed, and ostensibly, I don’t have one now that I have woken up. In fact, I may never had had one: I don’t remember actually ever being on the yacht at all, only being told that it had been seized.

Will I be allowed to get my belongings off it? I mean just some clothes and stuff, not the helicopter and the jetskis.

Although, if you’re offering…

There’s a lot of fuss online about yachts being seized and the more hysterical anti-vaxxers (who are now all pro-Putins) are warning us all that if “The State” can suddenly impound the super yachts of a Russian oligarch, then it easily could impound something of ours too.

To me, this seems unlikely for a number of reasons. Firstly, presumably, these powers aren’t new, and – even though I’ve had things for years and years – no-one has impounded anything of mine yet.
Well, apart from last night, of course, but that wasn’t real.

Secondly – and this is very much along the lines of the long-forgotten “they’re going to track us through the Covid app” nonsense – I really don’t have anything that they care about, just like your sad little life really isn’t interesting enough for them to want to track you.

And thirdly (obviously, I have double-checked this one, just to make sure) I’m not providing financial and political assistance to a despotic regime that is currently bombing innocent civilians. Arguably, this is probably the biggest reason, given that there are plenty of people out there who have super yachts and interesting lives, but who haven’t been funding and supporting the bombing of residential neighbourhoods in Kyiv, and are still free to hold disco parties on their stern deck and sail in and out of ports as they wish.

So god only knows what Dream Me must have been up to before I was informed that they were taking my boat last night. Thankfully, whatever it was didn’t actually happen, because it was just a dream.

Day 706, part 2: Will anyone notice?

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The South African Post Office has suspended its “services” to Russia, “The” Ukraine and Belarus.

The South African Post Office has long been so entirely dysfunctional that you would rather spend seventeen times the price to a private courier, but at least your package would actually get to where it was supposed to.

Quite literally no-one will notice that their service to these countries (or anywhere else) has been halted.

Also, please note the bottom paragraph, in which South Africans are once again advised to obey the rules for doing things when doing things. Just like this.

Day 705 – How long is a 40 mile long convoy?

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OK, OK, I know the answer to that, but as we hear of satellite imagery of a Russian column of armoured troop carriers, tanks, artillery and support and logistical vehicles stretching 40 miles along the road approaching Kiev, I felt that just seeing or hearing the number doesn’t mean much. So I thought that I’d put that into perspective.

So… Let’s leave Cape Town on the N1 and drive 40 miles.

40 miles is the distance from central Cape Town to the far end of the Huguenot Tunnel. Imagine each and every metre of that trip – past Woodstock, Paarden Eiland, Anal Walk, Durbanville, Joostenberg Vlakte, Paarl and out into the mountains – as an armoured convoy.
Terrifying.

Don’t like the N1? I don’t blame you.

So let’s take the N2 instead. 40 miles will take you from Cape Town almost to the gate of the immensely popular Peregrine Farm Stall in Grabouw.
Of course, any attack on Cape Town from this direction would be thwarted by frustration and capitulation at Somerset West and its infernal, constipated traffic light system, which probably explains why the Russians have chosen to come in from the North.

Day 700 – Double Overshadow

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It’s Day 700 of South Africa’s “lockdown” (we’re not locked down at all), but upon waking this morning, that landmark (such as it is) was obviously overshadowed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine overnight. It’s an odd thing for them to have done, because they repeatedly assured us that they weren’t going to invade Ukraine, but actually, all along, it seems that they were.
Almost like it wasn’t the full truth that we were getting from Vlad and his team.

Like I say… weird. I mean, who knew?

Some scary scenes this morning in Ukraine, and it’s only going to get uglier once the initial aerial onslaught has been completed and the ground-based operation begins.

Thankfully, this is a case of double overshadow though, as I also woke to the memory of Ben Davies scoring a 92nd minute winner in the crunch game against Blackburn Rovers at Beautiful Downtown Bramall Lane last night. After suffering the slings and arrows of a red card and then a penalty against us soon after, it was an unlikely victory, but one that I’m more than happy to take. So some small mercies (well, one) as the sun rises over Cape Town this morning. Although while this one is probably less likely to influence global foreign policy and the potential imminent outbreak of World War 3, it was a pretty amazing evening.

And so the march continues onto Millwall (and Kiev) this weekend.