China, Russia conclude BRICS+ naval drills in South Africa amid controversy

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00:00After a week of naval drills, the Will for Peace maritime exercise between nations like South Africa, Russia, China and Iran has concluded.

00:11Countries like Ethiopia and Egypt took on an observing role.

00:15This time the maritime exercises did not take place without any controversy as it was underway.

00:23A deadly protest raged on in Iran and following diplomatic discussions, Iran did decide to withdraw its participation within the exercise.

00:34It can also be asked that why it's called the BRICS Plus exercise as two key nations, Brazil and India, are not participating.

00:42South Africa might even benefit from having operations with countries bordering its own maritime boundaries.

00:49And to explain this, defence analyst Dean Wingren talks to us.

00:54There's exercise Ipsoma, which is South Atlantic and India.

00:57There's exercise Good Hope, which is exercise with Germany.

01:02And there's also been some with the US, which have.

01:06But these exercises have tailored off recently in the last couple of years.

01:10So now we've got this exercise between the BRICS nations.

01:14This exercise is a little bit eye-raising because BRICS is economic.

01:22It's definitely not a military, definitely not a political grouping and most certainly not a military alliance.

01:30And so we've seen this sort of kind of morphing of BRICS into something more than what some of the original founders, I think, intended.

01:38The next maritime exercise is expected to take place in 2028 and it's unclear which countries will participate.

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