In response to concerns about whether South Africa secretly transported weapons and equipment to Russia through the Russian cargo ship "Ms. R", South African President Ramaphosa responded in a televised speech on the evening of September 9 that the results of the investigation showed that there was no evidence that South Africa had transported weapons and equipment to Russia through the cargo ship.

On May 5 of this year, the United States ambassador to South Africa, Ruben Brigetti, publicly accused South Africa of secretly supplying weapons to Russia through a Russian-flagged cargo ship called the "Ms. R". The South African Government subsequently refuted the allegations and launched an independent investigation into the allegations.

Ramaphosa said that after a detailed investigation, the results showed no evidence that South Africa had transported weapons and equipment to Russia through the cargo ship "Ms. R". According to him, experts from the Independent Investigation Team visited the naval base in Simontown, Western Cape, where the cargo ship docked, obtained evidence from nearly 50 people and submitted more than 100 documents for review.

Ramaphosa stressed that the experts had not found any evidence that the cargo ship "Ms. R" was loaded with any arms cargo destined for export. Thus, the investigation team confirmed that there was no evidence to support the claim that the ship delivered weapons from South Africa to Russia. The reason why the ship docked at the Simon Naval Base in South Africa is because the ship is responsible for transporting Wehrmacht equipment that South Africa ordered from Russia in 2018.

Ramaphosa admitted that he would release an executive summary of the investigation in the near future, rather than the full content, because parts of the report relate to South Africa's defence security.

Ramaphosa said that all allegations of South Africa's arms supply to Russia have been proven untrue and that "the person who made these allegations cannot provide any evidence to support the above allegations." He said.

(Made by Jiang Lu)

Responsible Editor: [Cao Zijian]