Ukraine says Zelensky will visit South Africa, but no formal invite yet

Special police on guard on the roof of the congress hotel during the 55th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, 20 January 2025. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Michael Buholzer)

By Peter Fabricius and Victoria O’Regan

20 Jan 2025

Ukraine has said that President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to visit South Africa, though official details and timing are still pending. Zelensky is hoping to discuss the issue with President Cyril Ramaphosa at the upcoming World Economic Forum in Davos.

Ukraine said on Monday, 20 January that South Africa has confirmed that President Volodymyr Zelensky will visit the country.

Ukraine has long awaited an invitation from South Africa, and in an online briefing for South African and Indian journalists on Monday, the head of Zelensky’s office, Andriy Yermak, said that “through the diplomatic channels we received confirmation that President Zelensky will be welcome to visit South Africa”.

He said it was “very important” to Zelensky that he visited SA.

Read more: War in Ukraine

But South African Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said that although discussions were held about a potential visit by Zelensky to SA, no official invitation had yet been issued.

“A discussion has been held, but we are yet to officialise the invitation as well as how and when that visit will happen,” Magwenya told Daily Maverick on Monday.

Yermak told journalists Zelensky was hoping to iron out the date and other details of his potential visit to South Africa in a meeting with Ramaphosa on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, this week. Zelensky had requested a bilateral meeting with Ramaphosa and was hoping to receive confirmation that it would happen, according to Yermak.

ukraine sa davos Special police on guard on the roof of the Kongress Hotel during the 55th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on 20 January 2025. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Michael Buholzer)

In response, Magwenya confirmed Zelensky’s request to meet Ramaphosa in Davos, but suggested that a meeting between the two leaders might not take place due to changes in Ramaphosa’s schedule.

Read more: Davos becomes world’s most exclusive watch party

“However, the President’s programme, with respect to bilateral meetings, has had to be adjusted because he has cut back his visit to Davos by a day.

“So we will look at the programme when we get there in terms of how we manage requests for bilateral meetings,” he said.

The Presidency said on Monday that Ramaphosa would lead the South African delegation to the 55th World Economic Forum in Davos from 20 to 24 January.

Ramaphosa will be accompanied by International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau, Electricity Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Dr Blade Nzimande, Communications Minister Solly Malatsi, Environment Minister Dion George, Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi and Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen.

Read more: After the Bell: Does SA finally have a better story to tell at Davos 2025?

“The WEF annual meeting is a valuable opportunity for South Africa to demonstrate its potential as a hub for global investments and its ongoing structural reforms.

“South Africa’s delegation, which includes key government and business leaders, will engage with international stakeholders to strengthen partnerships and advance South Africa’s economic and social agenda,” Magwenya said in a statement.

On Monday afternoon, Yermak told journalists that a meeting between Ramaphosa and Zelensky would be important to discuss a potential strategy on how to continue to press Russia on ending the war by a “just peace” – which did not mean a temporary ceasefire or merely freezing the conflict.

If Zelensky visited SA it would also be a good opportunity for him to meet local experts and others to discuss how Ukraine could secure the return of thousands of its children whom Moscow had abducted and deported to Russia during the war.

Yermak said Kyiv was preparing a special resolution on Ukraine to be debated in the United Nations General Assembly on 24 February this year – the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

“And it’s a good opportunity… to declare that all Ukrainian children have to be back to their parents,” he said.

On this resolution, “the position of South Africa will be very much important” he said, expressing an implicit hope that SA would back Ukraine’s resolution. However, SA has so far abstained on every one of several UN General Assembly resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Dzvinka Kachur of the Ukrainian Association of South Africa noted in the briefing that in his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in July 2023, as head of an African peace mission, Ramaphosa had asked Putin to return the Ukrainian children, but nothing had happened.

Kachur also noted that last October, SA had joined several other countries planning to mediate the return of the children. She asked if there were any specific steps that SA could take to help with the return of the children, perhaps by sending child experts to Russia.

South African neutrality

British parliamentarian and international human rights lawyer Baroness Helena Kennedy, KC, who co-chairs the Bring Back the Children Task Force with Yermak, said that “based on its long-term relationships with powerful entities within Russia, South Africa could play a very, very important role in getting these children back”. This was particularly so because the South African Constitution was so protective of human rights.

Kennedy said the number of Ukrainian children abducted had been estimated at between 10,000 and 19,000 – of whom only about 600 had been returned. The Ukraine government’s official number is 388.

She said she had been very involved in the British Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) and knew many South African leaders. She said someone like Nelson Mandela’s widow Graça Machel or other retired politicians or judges could be persuasive intermediaries in freeing the children.

Kennedy said she knew that both South Africa and India had remained neutral in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but suggested the protection of children should rise above that.

Read more: Russia tramples international law by abducting Ukrainian children, but South Africa can help get them home – here’s how

“The taking of children cannot ever be part – a legitimate part – of a conflict and a nation being neutral still should be able to find its voice when it comes to what happens to children,” she said.

“We should be recognising the rights of children and the protection of children and the long-term consequences for children of taking them [from] the world that they know, from the people that care about them, from the people that give them their anchors in life.”

Kennedy said that judging by the accounts of some abducted children who had been returned, it was evident that Russia was brainwashing them to destroy their Ukrainian identity and believe they were Russian.

This would result in long-term psychological consequences for the children, she said.

Kennedy said she was very concerned that Russia might be keeping the children to use them in negotiations as bargaining chips to secure more territory or other concessions.

“The children should not be some sort of bargaining counter. It is quite wrong; quite wrong morally… It’s important that a nation like India, that a nation like South Africa, should make it very clear that that cannot ever be acceptable – that children become a bargaining counter in negotiations to end a war.” DM

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