{"id":13382,"date":"2026-01-09T14:31:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T14:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/13382\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T14:31:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T14:31:30","slug":"russian-naval-vessel-joins-chinese-and-iranian-warships-for-drills-off-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/13382\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian naval vessel joins Chinese and Iranian warships for drills off South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n         Published on<br \/>\n            09\/01\/2026 &#8211; 14:42 GMT+1\n            <\/p>\n<p>A Russian warship arrived at a naval base off the South African coast on Friday to join Chinese and Iranian vessels in military exercises that risk further damaging Pretoria&#8217;s relations with Washington.<\/p>\n<p>A Chinese destroyer and replenishment ship and an Iranian forward base ship sailed into South African waters earlier this week ahead of the week-long manoeuvres due to start on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>China is the lead nation in the <a href=\"http:\/\/eng.mod.gov.cn\/2025xb\/N\/T\/16436608.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">&#8220;Will for Peace 2026&#8221;<\/a> drill involving navies from the 11-nation BRICS group, which US President Donald Trump has labelled &#8220;anti-American&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The South African navy said it would confirm details of the vessels present later on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The drills will allow the navies &#8220;to exchange best practices and improve joint operational capabilities, which contributes to the safety of shipping routes and overall regional maritime stability,&#8221; South Africa&#8217;s defence force said.<\/p>\n<p>Russia and Iran have become close allies amid Moscow&#8217;s ongoing all-out war in Ukraine, with Tehran providing drones Russia commonly uses in daily barrages against civilian and infrastructure targets across Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Washington this week seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker it said was part of a shadow fleet that carried oil for countries such as Venezuela, Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n<p>It has also threatened action against Tehran should protesters be killed in mounting demonstrations sparked by anger over the rising cost of living.<\/p>\n<p>The joint drills were initially scheduled for November 2025 but were postponed due to a clash with the G20 summit in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n<p>Washington boycotted that summit amid a row with South Africa that includes anger over its ties with Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n<p>In October, the Trump administration announced it was restricting the number of refugees it admits annually to 7,500 and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/2025\/10\/30\/trump-limits-refugee-admissions-to-7500-per-year-and-gives-priority-to-white-south-african\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">giving priority to white South Africans<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The White House announced the programme in February, saying that the group faces discrimination and violence at home.<\/p>\n<p>The country&#8217;s government strongly denied that characterisation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We reiterate that allegations of discrimination are unfounded,&#8221; South Africa&#8217;s Ministry of Interior Relations said in May.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is most regrettable that it appears that the resettlement of South Africans to the United States under the guise of being &#8216;refugees&#8217; is entirely politically motivated and designed to question South Africa&#8217;s constitutional democracy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Additional sources \u2022 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 09\/01\/2026 &#8211; 14:42 GMT+1 A Russian warship arrived at a naval base off the South African&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[9155,235,176,9154,584,131],"class_list":{"0":"post-13382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-brics-summit","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-military-drill","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-south-africa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}