President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with President of the Republic of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in India.
The Russian delegation at the meeting included Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov; Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Maxim Oreshkin; Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office and Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov; Aide to the President Yuri Ushakov; Minister of Agriculture Oksana Lut; Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov; Director of the Federal Service for Military Technical Cooperation Dmitry Shugayev; Special Presidential Representative for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries and Chief Executive Officer of the Russian Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev; First Deputy Minister of Energy Pavel Sorokin; President of the Russian Fertiliser Producers Association, member of the Board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and Head of the Russian Segment of the BRICS Business Council Andrei Guryev, and Director General of the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom Alexei Likhachev.
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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President, friends, I am very glad to see you.
Our previous discussions also took place at the BRICS summit, in Kazan, yet we remain in constant contact – as do our respective teams.
Last year, we had the opportunity to compare positions on the full spectrum of current issues with your Vice-President, who, at your instruction, participated in the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Relations between the Russian Federation and the Republic of South Africa are developing successfully. Just last week, on September 5, we marked the 20th anniversary of our basic treaty, signed in 2006 – the Treaty on Friendship and Partnership between our states.
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Political dialogue and inter-parliamentary ties are developing, with the heads of our foreign ministries maintaining regular contact.
Trade may not be increasing at a rapid pace, but it continues to grow and remains at a solid level.
We have traditionally developed cooperation in the cultural and educational spheres, particularly in personnel training and education. For the 2026–27 academic year, the state quota has been increased to 100 scholarships for your young people to study in Russia.
We note the similarity of our approaches to key international and regional issues, and we are grateful for South Africa’s support for Russian initiatives at the United Nations.
Naturally, Russia attaches great importance to the comprehensive development of relations with African countries as a whole. We are preparing, in a robust manner, for the third Summit Russia-Africa, which will take place in Moscow from October 28 to October 29. Among the main subjects are digital technologies, artificial intelligence, peaceful use of freedom, and food security. And we do expect to have a representative delegation from your state.
Mr President, my dear friend, I am most delighted to see you.
President of the Republic of South Africa :Cyril Ramaphosa Thank you very much, President Putin.
It’s always a real pleasure to see you, because that gives us an opportunity to continue to strengthen our relations and also advance the various areas in which Russia and South Africa have dealings. And I wish to thank you once again for Russia’s support for South Africa’s G20 presidency, and for your country’s support for South Africa’s priorities. Many people believe that the G20, that was held in South Africa, was very successful, and in large measure this was also due to the support that we received from Russia.
It was not an easy summit, but we were able to overcome the challenges from those who did not want to fully participate. But it was a good summit.
And I wish to convey our appreciation for the continuing significant progress in our bilateral relations. Trade obviously needs to be much better, but it is continuing in the right number of areas in which our trade relations can improve, and we need to focus on that as well.
And thank you very much for receiving our Vice President, who came to the Investment Forum. The discussions that took place there have helped to strengthen relations between our two countries, and in a number of areas we find that our two governments cooperate well.
The 18th Session of the Intergovernmental Committee on Trade and Economic Cooperation (ICTEC), which took place in Moscow in April 2025, that, too, extended our relations. It was an important opportunity to also review the progress and to identify new areas of collaboration. The appointment of South Africa’s ambassador to Moscow has been outstanding, but we will be appointing an ambassador soon.
And I am honoured by your invitation to attend the Russia–Africa Summit during the October month in Moscow. We are having local government elections exactly a few days thereafter, so I will be in the middle of a very vigorous campaign, and I will therefore not be able to honour the invitation.
However, South Africa will be represented, and we obviously are very interested in hearing from you about the developments that continue to take place in the various conflicts that are happening in the world. And we are also grateful that we’ve been invited to participate in the Pathways to Peace Second International Conference that will be taking place in Canada. So we want to hear your views on that as well, because we would like to attend, to see how best we can continue advancing our relations.
Now, South Africa will continue working with yourselves in various international forums to contribute to the broader international efforts aiming at securing peace around the world, and we know that Russia also would like to see that objective achieved.
Then we also take this opportunity to thank you for continuing to give our country support when it comes to the training of our students.
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