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Zelensky to visit SA while US squeezes him to make concessions to Russia

Zelensky to visit SA while US squeezes him to make concessions to Russia
Ukrainian Ambassador to South African Liubov Abravitova, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, and Charge d’affaires of the Embassy of Ukraine to South Africa speaks to the media during a press conference at the Cape Town Press Club on March 02, 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo: Gallo Images / Die Burger / Adrian de Kock)
Peter Fabricius
By Peter Fabricius
21 Apr 2025
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Pretoria hopes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa will contribute to peace, while Kyiv focuses on deepening relations with SA.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will visit South Africa this week to meet President Cyril Ramaphosa, while Zelensky is under huge pressure to agree to tough US terms for a peace deal with Russia.

US President Donald Trump’s negotiators have presented Ukraine with a peace proposal that would require it to give up Crimea permanently and also renounce its ambition to join Nato, according to the Wall Street Journal and other US media.

Until recently, Zelensky’s visit would have been unthinkable. Relations between South Africa and Ukraine were tense because of Pretoria’s close ties to Russia, and in particular its refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. South Africa abstained from several resolutions of the UN General Assembly in 2022 and 2023 to avoid condemning Moscow. SA’s position also strained relations with the Biden Administration and with Europe. 

But history has moved on. Now, SA finds itself, if anything, closer to Zelensky than the US is. Trump, meanwhile, has blamed Zelensky for starting the war with Russia and is trying to push him into a peace deal with Russia which would require hard concessions by Ukraine. 

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that senior Trump administration officials had presented the outlines of a confidential peace plan to their Ukrainian counterparts in Paris on Thursday. The plan appeared to favour Russia, including potential US recognition of Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and Kyiv abandoning its ambition of joining Nato.

The US expected Kyiv’s response at a meeting of US, Ukrainian and European officials in London later this week, the paper said. If they agreed, the plan would be put to Moscow. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio added further pressure by warning that if Ukraine and Russia did not agree to a peace deal soon, the US would abandon its mediation.

On the ground, the two sides accused each other of dishonouring short-term Easter truces. 

‘Peaceful resolution’


Pretoria has repeatedly presented Zelensky’s visit on Thursday – which has been in the making for more than six months – as primarily about seeking peace in the war which has been raging since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022. 

magwenya President Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya. (Photo: Gallo Images / Frennie Shivambu).



For instance, in a media briefing on 20 March, Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said, “We see President Zelensky’s visit as a continuation of our efforts to try to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.”

He referred to Ramaphosa’s meetings with Zelensky in Kyiv and with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg in June 2023, when Ramaphosa headed a panel of African presidents who presented a peace plan to the two leaders. At that meeting, Ramaphosa accepted Zelensky’s invitation for South Africa to participate in international discussions on his peace formula, which culminated in a summit in Switzerland in June last year.

Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ronald Lamola said last week, after co-chairing a meeting of the SA-Russia Joint Inter-Governmental Committee on Trade and Economic Cooperation, and meeting his counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow, that SA also participated in the Joint Group of Friends for Peace, which is led by China and Brazil. 

Magwenya also mentioned other meetings Ramaphosa recently had with Zelensky, at Davos in February this year and on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York last September.

He touted Ramaphosa’s ability to speak to both sides in the conflict, which he said only two or three other world leaders could do, and which the US had been unable to do, until Trump. 

It is not clear, though, what SA might be able to bring to the peace process, which the Trump administration seems to be running very much on its own terms. 

Differing ambitions


Kyiv appears to have different ambitions for the meeting between Zelensky and Ramaphosa, with a narrower focus on the role South Africa could play in negotiations – by helping to secure the release of the thousands of Ukrainian children who Russia abducted from occupied Ukrainian territories and deported to Russia. Kyiv also seems to have a more general interest in improving relations with South Africa – and with Africa – an important Ukrainian objective since the war started. 

abravitova Ukrainian Ambassador to South Africa Liubov Abravitova. (Photo: Gallo Images / Die Burger / Adrian de Kock)



In March, Ukraine’s ambassador to South Africa Liubov Abravitova told SABC that the main purpose of Zelensky’s visit was political dialogue.

“This will be the first visit of a Ukrainian president to SA since the reestablishment of Ukraine’s independence. We are looking forward [to] the launching of a bilateral, multisectoral dialogue and cooperation. We are pretty sure it will reflect South Africa’s goals in the G20,” she said. 

Olexiy Haran, research adviser of the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and professor of Comparative Politics at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, noted that this was a long-awaited visit. It was Zelensky’s first, to both South Africa and Africa. He said the visit was not “ off the cuff” – it was the culmination of systematic work by Ukraine with Africa, and South Africa in particular, which initiated the visit that was agreed to last September.

“It’s also a response to the visit of President Ramaphosa to Ukraine with the African peace mission in 2023,” he told Daily Maverick, referring to Ramaphosa’s visits to both Kyiv and St Petersburg at that time. 

“It’s not the influence of recent events. It was agreed more than half a year ago.”

He noted that South Africa and Ukraine had many things in common: “Especially with the Russian aggression, we need to talk about global stability, reform of the UN, which is impossible without Africa.”

‘Return to colonialism’


He noted a trend towards abandoning a world based on the rule of law and order, and “instead to divide the world into spheres of influence, where the great powers will play the most important role. And they just decide by themselves, ignoring the will of other countries.”

“We see the return of the practice of colonialism. In the case of Ukraine, it’s very, very clear, because the former colonial empire is trying to come back. 

“So I think both countries (SA and Ukraine) are interested that we will have a world based on international order, based on the rule of law, international law.

“We have in common also democracy and freedom as our basic values, both for Ukraine and for South Africa.”

Haran noted that after abstaining from all the UN General Assembly resolutions in 2022 and 2023 on Russia’s war against Ukraine, in February this year South Africa had voted for the General Assembly Path to Peace resolution which mourned “the tragic loss of life throughout the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation” and reaffirmed the UN’s “commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders…”

He noted that Russia had voted against this resolution while the US had abstained. 

Deported children


Haran said he believed that Ramaphosa and Zelensky would discuss the role which South Africa could still play as part of the international negotiations to secure the release of the Ukrainian children deported to Russia, estimated to number about 20,000.

He noted that at the Ministerial Conference on the Human Dimension of the Ukraine Peace Formula held in Montreal, Canada, in October 2024, Pretoria had stated that, “The Republic of South Africa is ready to become a mediator in the return of Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia.”

Lamola said in his statement after his Moscow meetings last week that South Africa had agreed to work with Qatar and the Holy See on this initiative. Pretoria has expressed its readiness to help release the children several times, but does not seem to have made any progress. 

Haran agreed with Abravitova that Ukraine and South Africa could work together to realise the aims put forward by South Africa during its chairmanship of the G20 this year. He said he believed Ukraine would be happy for Zelensky to receive an invitation from Pretoria to attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg in November. 

“Moreover, Ukraine is ready to participate in the working groups of G20, specifically groups on food security and also digitalisation.”

South Africa has invited several non-G20 members to participate in G20 meetings, though not Ukraine, so far. 

Haran said he believed Ukraine would be happy if the two countries established a joint trade and economic commission to further develop bilateral ties. DM

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