US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Monday that if Russia is allowed to bully Ukraine, invade and seize territory without question, it will be “open season” around the world, according to The Guardian.

This was stated by the head of US diplomacy during a press conference together with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of South Africa, Naledi Pandor, during a visit to the African continent.

“If we let a big country bully a smaller country and just invade and take them out, then it’s open season not just in Europe, but in the whole world,” Blinken said.

Reuters reported that Blinken also said that the United States felt it was important to confront Russia because its aggression against Ukraine threatened the fundamental principles of the international system.

South Africa has refused to join Western calls to condemn Russia

Minister Naledi Pandor, for her part, noted that no one in South Africa supports the war in Ukraine, but the norms of international law are not applied equally. “We should be just as concerned about what is happening to the people of Palestine as what is happening to the people of Ukraine,” she said.

South Africa abstained from a UN vote condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, like other African countries, rejected calls to condemn Russia.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrived in South Africa on Sunday, intending to later visit the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda as part of a tour aimed at countering the influence of Russian diplomacy on the African continent, writes AFP. The visit came shortly after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s African tour in July.

Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, South Africa, a leading developing country, has taken a neutral position in the conflict, refusing to join Western calls to condemn Moscow.

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