Let’s be clear: Russian President Vladimir Putin runs an authoritarian kleptocracy that is engaged in a complex war with Ukraine — ostensibly over territory, but really about a stand-off between Nato and Russia.

The Russian Federation is a member of Brics — as is SA — and President Cyril Ramaphosa may be conflating the support the ANC received from the USSR with the relationship he seeks with Putin’s Russia. This is as he cosies up to the great bear in the hope of, among other desires, driving a wedge between former president Jacob Zuma and the new Russia, declaring that Russia is a “valued ally who supported us from the beginning ... of our struggle against apartheid”...

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