Russian vessel slips out of Simon’s Town with still no official explanation

Lady R, a Russian cargo vessel in Simon’s Town harbour on 6 December, 2022. (Photo: Supplied)

By Victoria O’Regan

9 Dec 2022

By 1.43pm on Friday, Lady R had still not shown up on marine monitoring services after three nights of highly guarded activity.

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The Russian cargo ship, Lady R was seen by a number of Simon’s Town residents leaving the navy harbour at about 6.30am on Friday. Several guards were reported in the vicinity as navy tugboats arrived at 6am and guided the vessel out of the harbour.

Russian cargo ship Lady R leaves Simonstown harbour. Photo:Supplied

By 8am it was heading past Cape Point.

Lady R’s early departure from the Simon’s Town Naval Base comes after three nights of highly guarded activity, as mysterious and – as it stands – unidentified cargo was moved on and off the ship in the presence of armed officials under the cover of darkness.

Read in Daily Maverick: “Docking in the dark — Sanctioned Russian ship drops anchor at Simon’s Town Naval Base”

The Russian cargo ship docked between 8pm and 10pm on Tuesday. Its automatic identification system (AIS) – which provides the ship’s position, identification and other information to other vessels and coastal authorities – was offline. By 1.43pm on Friday, Lady R had still not shown up on marine monitoring services – an indication that its AIS is likely to be switched off.

Read in Daily Maverick: “Sanctioned Russian ship moves mystery cargo in Simon’s Town navy dockyard under cover of night”

To date there has been no official explanation from the Department of Defence (DoD), the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), nor the navy for the arrival of the ship. Daily Maverick has repeatedly contacted the DoD, SANDF and the navy for comment, but has received no reply.

Russian cargo ship Lady R leaves Simonstown harbour. Photo:Supplied

‘Unacceptable’

On Thursday, DA defence spokesperson Kobus Marais wrote to Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Thandi Modise, asking that she explain why the US-sanctioned Russian vessel was docked at the Simon’s Town naval dockyard, and why it was “shrouded in secrecy”.

Marais also asked the SANDF and the navy to explain the presence of the commercial vessel which had docked in a navy port, but still had not received a reply by 11am on Friday.

Lady R a Russian cargo vessel in Simon's Town harbour on Thursday night. There was a hive of activity around the ship after 8pm on Thursday.

The silence from government officials, Marais says, is “unacceptable”.

Speaking to Daily Maverick, Marais said that it was clear from the information he had received that the hive of activity surrounding the vessel in the past days had mainly occurred during the night.

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Several Simon’s Town residents observed and photographed cranes moving at least six containers between trucks and the Lady R at the naval dockyard quayside from just before midnight on Thursday, Daily Maverick reported.

“Trucks were parked at a local sports ground during the day, and were heavily armed and guarded,” he said.

Marais said there is “clearly there’s an involvement of Armscor” – the arms procurement agency of the Department of Defence. The information he had received was that Armscor was involved in contracting the truckers to transport the cargo.

David S Feldmann, spokesperson for the US embassy in Pretoria, told Daily Maverick that since 8 May 2022, Lady R and its parent company, Transmorflot LLC, had been subject to US economic sanctions.

“We had previously advised the South African government that the Lady R was planning to stop in South Africa,” he said on Thursday.

“We had indicated the vessel was sanctioned under US 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 US sanctions,” he added.

Feldmann wouldn’t divulge further details about when the embassy had communicated with South Africa about the planned arrival of the 2004 Ro-Ro (roll-on/roll-off) Russian cargo ship. DM

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‘Unacceptable’