Angola: Russia’s Lavrov compares Ukraine conflict with Angola’s civil war

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Angola: Russia’s Lavrov compares Ukraine conflict with Angola’s civil war

7:53 CAT | 26 Jan 2023

Photo: Lusa

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, speaking in Luanda on Wednesday, drew a comparison between the conflict in Ukraine and the long civil war in Angola, on a trip to African capitals during which he is seeking support for Moscow’s positions in relation to Kyiv.

At issue, the Russian minister explained in a meeting with his Angolan counterpart, Téte António, is the fact that the regime in Kyiv is harming Russian speakers in Ukraine, prompting Moscow to intervene to protect that part of the population.

“The same conflict based on the will of the population to defend their rights broke out in Ukraine after the unconstitutional coup, after the military and bloody coup that the Nazis – declared neo-Nazis even – came to power who called for killing the Russians, the Jews, the Poles,” Lavrov said, in a reference to the 2014 deposition of Viktor Yanukovytch, the elected president of Ukraine.

At the time, Russia moved into and occupied the Crimean peninsula and parts of eastern Ukraine, in a conflict that entered a new phase last February with a full-scale invasion of the rest of the country that Russia terms a “special operation”.

Lavrov said that Russia had tried by various means to end the conflict, but that despite this the regime in Kyiv had opted for it to spread – banning the Russian language and culture and inviting those who associate with it to leave the country.

“The West has not reacted to these racist and colonialist statements,” Lavrov said. “What’s more, the US and its allies have done everything to cultivate this hatred and turn Ukraine into a weapons hub with the aim of placing military bases there and creating a threat to the entire region.”

The “declared aim” of this strategy, he said, was to “engage and draw Ukraine into NATO.”

He recalled the then Soviet Union’s support for the MPLA – then a liberation movement, now Angola’s governing party – in its war against Portuguese colonial forces and then in the civil war, against UNITA, which was backed by the US and apartheid South Africa.

“The Angolan people know well what the price of independence is, what the price is of the free exercise of the traditional rights of every Angolan and, in the same way, Angola participates [now] actively in the effort to establish peace in other countries for security, peace and prosperity in those countries,” he said, drawing a comparison between the two conflicts.

Relations between Moscow and Angola’s governing party “go back many years, to the period of the liberation war,” he recalled, stressing the aim of establishing a strategic partnership between the two countries.

Lavrov praised Angola’s “balanced” position in the United Nations on decisions “that divide the international community, namely the resolutions concerning the conflict in Ukraine.”

Antonio, for his part, stressed that Angola favours an inclusive dialogue, the political commitments based on the national interest for the re-establishment of the constitutional order and to guarantee the stability of the countries in conflict, always respecting the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of each state.

It also defends negotiation and the search for a mutually accepted solution, he continued, stressing the fight against all the scourges that affect stability and development and respect for international law.

The meeting with Lavrov is also “a golden opportunity to have the privilege of listening to your analysis, opinion, about the conflict that affects the world today,” Antonio said, stressing his concern at the countless human casualties and destruction of infrastructures in the war in Ukraine.

António stressed that the war constitutes a serious threat to international peace and security and that “all the nations of the world are victims in a variable way of this conflict” and expressed concern at an increasly worse situation on the ground.

In the face of this situation that affects two countries to which Angola is linked in history, the minister defended the principle of seeking a solution through dialogue, including a cessation of hostilities.

Source: Lusa