Russia-South Africa Relations: It's Complicated

 The South African Institute of International Affairs published on 19 September 2024 a commentary titled "Can Old Alliances Survive New Realities in Russia-South Africa Relations?" by Gustavo de Carvalho and Xiang Chen.  

Historically close ties between the Soviet Union and the anti-apartheid movement (now the government) in South Africa is encountering a younger generation of leaders who are less concerned with this legacy.  As a result, there is strategic ambiguity in South Africa's policy today vis-a-vis Russia.

Looking Back: China and South Africa's Apartheid Government

The Daily Maverick published on 6 November 2017 an expose titled "Declassified: Apartheid Profits--China's Support for Apartheid Revealed".

Drawing on declassified South African government documents, the article reports that China supplied South Africa's apartheid military with guns, ammunition and weaponry beginning at least as early as 1980, a period when South Africa had diplomatic relations with Taiwan. At least one of the shipments appears to have made its way from Durban to units of UNITA in Angola and RENAMO in Mozambique, liberation groups supported at the time by both China and South Africa.