[imagesource: YouTube / Military Coverage]

South Africa is hosting the navies of China, and Russia, along with our own forces, in what is formally known as Exercise Mosi II off the KwaZulu-Natal coast.

This will take place for 10 days starting on 17 February and yes, it is basically “tantamount to a declaration that South Africa is joining the war against Ukraine on Russia’s side” according to the Desmond and Leah Tutu Foundation.

As controversial as that already is, the whole event is ramping up to become quite a historic moment – not one we should be very proud to be a part of.

Business Insider has reported that the role of South Africa is starting to look like a “propaganda coup for Russia”, helping Russian President Vladimir Putin show off a weapon that can “dramatically change the balance of power in maritime battles and atomic warfare”.

During the military exercise in KZN, the Russian warship Admiral Gorshkov will apparently launch a Zircon missile, the first of its kind:

The Zircon, sometimes translated as Tsirkon, is a hypersonic missile, a class being furiously developed by China, France, and the United States among others. With speeds that Russia claims can hit Mach 9, the weapon could be effectively unstoppable if correctly deployed, making any ship (say a vastly expensive and strategically stupidly important aircraft carrier) a sitting duck. And if the claimed range of the Ziron is accurate, such a capital ship could be destroyed by an enemy as far away as Durban is from Cape Town.

It is not clear whether Russia was the first nation to use a hypersonic missile because the only evidence of it being used is via a low-quality video released by Russia’s ministry of defence:

But now South Africa, along with China, is being given the unique opportunity to see it in action, up close, after which the three countries will issue a joint statement to confirm the moment.

That means SA will effectively become a “guarantor of sorts that, yes, Russia really has deployed hypersonic missiles and, yes, they really do perform as advertised”.

Just wonderful.

Putin has made a point of describing the hypersonic missiles as “invincible” while the popular press in Nato countries has called it “terrifying”.

If this weapon is deployed from international waters with a nuclear payload attached, there will be nowhere to hide for any of Europe and much of America.

[source:businessinsider]