The potential for an escalation of the war in Ukraine is reaching a fever pitch with Russian airstrikes hitting the Yavoriv International Centre for Peacekeeping and Security. The centre is just 25km from the Polish border, bringing the Russians ever closer to full-on conflict with NATO.
Russia said its attacks had destroyed weapons and foreign mercenaries that had been supplied by Western nations and that western-supplied arms would be fair game to strike. NATO, for its part, has said any military engagement within a member’s territory would prompt a response from the body. Poland is a member state of NATO.
Russia has asked China for military assistance in Ukraine and wants a supply of equipment in aid of its war efforts. Beijing has not indicated how they will respond to Russia’s request as yet but Bloomberg reports that there are concerns China is sabotaging Ukraine’s defence response to the Russian invasion.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he wanted to facilitate a direct meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin while peace talks continue between delegations from the two nations on Monday. Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the idea of a Zelenskyy-Putin meeting has not been ruled out by the Kremlin.
On the home front, the Ukrainian Association of South Africa says it finds President Cyril Ramaphosa’s mediation style strange given the fact that he has so far only spoken to the “aggressor” Russia.
Last week Ramaphosa had a call with Putin, where he asked the Russian president to explain the situation to him and offered South Africa’s services as a mediation partner to help broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.
Dzvinka Kachur, president and founder of the Ukrainian Association of SA, said Ramaphosa has not made any attempts to contact Zelenskyy and doubted the claims of mediation. Kachur rubbished claims made by the Russian embassy in SA that mercenaries were being recruited to go and fight in Ukraine.
Ukrainian ambassador Liubov Abravitova said there had been no contact with Ukraine from SA on any level thus far and called the mediation talks an attempt “to put some veneer of respectability on their moral treachery in this matter.”
A scathing rebuke, indeed.
In the markets, the war in Ukraine continues to dominate global markets while inflationary pressure has brought interest rates into focus this week. The US Fed is expected to hike the interest rate by 25 bps while the Bank of England will also announce its monetary policy decision this week.
The rand is currently trading at R15.07/$ and is expected to sit in the R14.90-R15.25 range after the Fed’s announcement on Wednesday while developments in Ukraine will also affect the local unit.
Precious metals closed softer last week, a trend that has continued this morning. Gold is at $1,974, platinum at $1,055, and palladium at $2,691. Brent is down 2.5% and is currently trading at $109 a barrel.
