Lady R incident
[4][5][6] The Lady R is a Russian flagged roll-on/roll-off type cargo ship built in 2004 by the Türkiye Gemi Shipbuilding company in Istanbul, Turkey.
[9] Prior to the December 2022 docking of the Lady R in Simon's Town, the South African government's position on the invasion of Ukraine had drawn criticism for being unofficially friendly towards Russia whilst official neutral.
[3][24] The ship was loaded and unloaded with cargo under armed guard at night under the cover of darkness as the country experienced a planned national rolling blackout[2] on 8 December.
[24][27][2][26] There was significant speculation at the time about whether or not this was an instance of South Africa supplying weapons to Russian forces in support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Two weeks later, following repeated questions about the docking, Defence and Military Veterans Minister Thandi Modise stated that the Lady R was offloading an old, outstanding order for ammunition.
[46][35] South Africa denied that the meeting was connected to the diplomatic incident resulting from the Lady R docking and stated that the trip was planned before Brigety's statement.
[49] Stating that unless one considered the possibility of Russian funding for the ANC, South Africa's support for Russia in its war against Ukraine "made no sense.
[62][63] Russia responded by stating that their government "expressed their intention to further intensify mutually beneficial relations" in a possible attempt to exploit the situation.
[67] The South African government published the executive summary of the findings but kept the full report secret arguing that it needed to maintain military security.
[72] The inquiry also noted the role of the United Arab Emirates in facilitating the weapons transaction,[70] and that the ship had turned off its identification transponder as it was being tracked by unnamed foreign intelligence agencies.
[72] According to journalist Thulani Mpofu, "A South African government inquiry into whether weapons were loaded onto a Russian ship in December 2022, as claimed by a US diplomat, has established that a European company had in fact been uploading food onto the vessel.
[71][69] The director of the African Defence Review, Darren Olivier, stated that the inquiry's findings raised "more questions than it answers" and that it was unlikely that it would close the issue.
