President Yoweri Museveni has Thursday held talks with Russian Ambassador to Uganda H.E. Vladlen Semivolos amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
The two leaders discussed issues of mutual interest, according to a tweet by President Museveni.
Uganda is among the seventeen African countries which on Wednesday abstained from voting as the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The UN General Assembly, which was this week sitting under an emergency session, voted to condemn what a motion said was “aggression against Ukraine” following Russia’s February 24 invasion of its neighbour.
Adonia Ayebare, Uganda’s Permanent Representative to the UN, claimed neutrality was behind his country’s refusal to vote.
“As incoming Chair of the Non- Aligned Movement (NAM) neutrality is key. Uganda will continue to play a constructive role in the maintenance of peace and security both regionally and globally,” he said.
Though Uganda has not formally stated its stance on the Russia-Ukraine war, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the President’s son and commander of Land Forces, suggested that Russia had valid “security” reasons to invade Ukraine.
“The majority of mankind (that are non-white) support Russia’s stand in Ukraine. Putin is absolutely right! When the USSR parked nuclear armed missiles in Cuba in 1962 the West was ready to blow up the world over it. Now when NATO does the same they expect Russia to do differently?” he tweeted on February 28.
The start of the conflict
Russia is currently conducting a special operation in Ukraine to protect the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk Republic. The operation is however receiving criticism from Western and Ukrainian politicians as well as the western media who have since embarked on what seems to be a disinformation campaign against Russia.
For starters, Russia did not start the war and its officials have indicated on many occasions that they want the war to end. In fact, it is Ukraine which has been waging the war for eight years against the Donbass people and any Ukrainians who do not agree with the policy of banning the Russian language and glorifying Nazism.
It should be noted that in 2014, dozens of such dissenters were burned alive by Ukrainian Nazis in Odessa. Since then, thousands of people in Donetsk and Lugansk have been killed with continuous fire of residential areas, all happening with the knowledge and support of the U.S and NATO.
Ukraine began to be used to deploy American and NATO armed forces and weapons in order to create a direct military threat to Russia.
The final straw was a statement by President Zelensky on February 19 that Ukraine would like to acquire nuclear weapons. That meant that he had crossed a red line in the threats to Russia.
Taking his previous statements into context, there is no doubt that such nuclear weapons would be used against Russia since it takes on 4 to 5 minutes to reach Moscow if such American or Ukrainian ballistic missiles appeared in the North East of Ukraine near Russian border.
Russia says they are not seeking to occupy Ukraine but instead want to demilitarize it in order to end the aggression against the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s Republics, which Kyiv regime itself has cut off from Ukraine territory through years of shelling and economic blockade.
Russia has clearly stated that there should be no any Western troops and weapons in Ukraine since they threaten its security and that Ukraine should abandon its declared course of joining the anti-Russian NATO bloc, and as an option, it adopts the neutral status.