[imagesource:twitter/@cyrilramaphosa]

Our President – of all people, even those with actual power, influence and sway – decided he was going to solve the war in Ukraine and speak to Putin and Zelensky to stop their nonsense.

Leaving his cash-stuffed couch at Phala Phala, with peacock feathers pruned for posturing, President Cyril Ramaphosa gathered his people and went over thinking this would be a legacy moment for him.

Uncle Cyril even took a plane full of journalists and security personnel so that they could escort, protect, witness and document his iconic victory in solving world peace, or something like that.

This is a historic mission, by African leaders, in a quest for peace. #AfricanPeaceMission pic.twitter.com/2UGFrjRMiw

— Cyril Ramaphosa 🇿🇦 (@CyrilRamaphosa) June 16, 2023

But the 120-strong peace-keeping delegation – consisting of 11 local journalists and more than 90 South African Police Service and South African National Defence Force (SANDF) officials – landed in Poland, and nobody was allowed to leave the plane.

Briefly reported that they remained stranded at the Warsaw Chopin Airport for over 24 hours because Polish authorities would not let them disembark the plane, thinking the plane was transporting weapons without the necessary permits.

President Ramaphosa’s head of security, Major General Wally Rhoode, accused the Polish government the jeopardising the president’s safety and racism amid the diplomatic dispute at the airport.

The Polish government has wholeheartedly dismissed the allegations of racism, with the Polish Director of the National Security Department and Minster-Special Services Coordinator Stanislaw Zaryn rubbishing them as nonsense, BBC reported.

The plane was promptly sent back, without a journalist or security person ever seeing the light of European day.

South Africa got a taste of how real security works.

— Tinman (@Acolitus) June 16, 2023

Anyway, Ramaphosa, along with key personnel, managed to get into Ukraine to have a sit-down with President Volodymyr Zelensky. The outcome? Not much. Zelensky was like nah, peace doesn’t exist while we’re occupied, you’re delusional and everyone left the chat (which honestly could have been online).

It would have saved the country a whole lot of money and embarrassment if Cyril Ramaphosa’s peace mission had been an email, rather than a meeting, writes Howard Feldman.

Then, while they were hashing things out on Friday, June 16, Russia filed a missile attack on Kyiv, but the South African spokesperson suggested it didn’t happen and was “deliberate misinformation”, which led to him being called the “biggest liar in the world”:

‘Biggest Liar in the World’: South Africa Spokesperson Slammed Over Kyiv Air Raid Denials
https://t.co/qkEUnkdZZj

— Bo Mbindwane (@mbindwane) June 17, 2023