A few hours after Vladimir Putin’s troops invaded Ukraine, South African government ministers attended a cocktail party at the Russian ambassador’s residence in Pretoria. The event aimed “to honor Russia’s brave soldiers,” according to the invitation seen by The Epoch Times. Since the war in eastern Europe began, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration has rebuffed requests for meetings from Ukrainian diplomats. South Africa’s governing party the African National Congress (ANC), like many others in Africa, forged close ties with Moscow in the 1950s and 1960s when the Soviet Union supported the continent’s myriad wars against “colonialist oppressors” with money, weapons, and military training. Many of Africa’s current political elite were educated in Russia, including ANC veteran Tokyo Sexwale, who received military training there in the party’s armed wing in the early 1970s. “The Russians gave me instruction in explosives and also marksmanship with AK47s and Makarov pistols,” Sexwale recalls. He came …