Sonia Salim
Jun 17, 2023
min
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Ramaphosa's security is stalled in Poland on the African peace trip between Ukraine and Russia.

On Thursday, a charter flight took off from Pretoria with around 120 people on board. There were members of the South African security forces and journalists who were going to follow President Ramaphosa on his trip to Kiev. They were all part of a peace mediation mission led by African leaders. 
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Hey, did you hear about what happened to President Cyril Ramaphosa's security team?

They were supposed to go with him to Ukraine, but they got detained in Poland. It's causing a bit of a diplomatic issue between the two countries.

So, get this, General Wally Rhoode, who heads up Mr. Ramaphosa's security team, is calling out the Polish authorities for being "racist" and putting the president's life in danger. Apparently, Rhoode's team was stopped when they landed at Chopin airport in Warsaw.

On Thursday, a charter flight took off from Pretoria with around 120 people on board. There were members of the South African security forces and journalists who were going to follow President Ramaphosa on his trip to Kiev. They were all part of a peace mediation mission led by African leaders. 



On Friday, the Polish government responded by calling these statements "inane”. They clarified that some of the folks on the plane from South Africa didn't have permits for their weapons, so they couldn't get off the plane. According to Stanislaw Zaryn, a government official from the Polish special services, they thought they would stay on board.

After spending almost 24 hours on the tarmac, several journalists were finally permitted to depart on Friday afternoon.


The African mediators will fly from Kiev to St. Petersburg in northwest Russia on Saturday to meet with Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile in Kiev, while meeting with African leaders on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stated that peace negotiations with Russia would only be feasible once Moscow retreated its soldiers from seized Ukrainian land in order to make them practicable.

And Zelenskiy stated that he could not comprehend what the leaders could possibly benefit by meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday in St. Petersburg, which is the second largest city in Russia.

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