South African authorities unveiled an official report by an independent committee formed to investigate claims surrounding the Russian ship “Lady R,” which was alleged to have transported weapons to Russia.
In December 2022, the Russian vessel “Lady R” docked in South Africa. Commenting on its arrival at the Simon’s Town naval base in South Africa, the U.S. Ambassador to South Africa, Roben Brigety, alleged that the Republic was supplying the Russian military with weapons.
The ship stayed at the base from December 6th to 8th. Brigety claimed, “They definitely loaded weapons and ammunition onto it, and then it returned to Russia.”
However, South African authorities stated that there’s no evidence to support Brigety’s claims. Following an official protest from the South African Foreign Ministry, the U.S. Ambassador acknowledged he “overstepped and apologized.”
By August, the independent committee, formed to look into such allegations, had not received any evidence to support the weapon supply claims.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, on September 3rd, declared that the investigation’s results showed no evidence of weapons being transferred to Russia aboard the ship.
According to him, during the probe, the committee visited the Simon’s Town base and took testimonies from nearly 50 individuals, in addition to reviewing over 100 documents.
The committee’s report indicated that the goods delivered by the ship to Simon’s Town were equipment requested by the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).
These were ordered from Armscor (the defense ministry’s weapon procurement company) back in 2018.
Per the report, the delivery of the equipment had been delayed due to the pandemic and conflict in Ukraine.
Furthermore, the report stated, “Despite rumors suggesting that certain equipment or weapons were loaded onto the ‘Lady R,’ the investigation committee did not find any evidence to back these claims. The available evidence only confirmed the ship’s unloading and no loading of cargo.”
