Vladimir Putin has concurred that it is high time Russia expanded its partnership with Africa beyond the military and defence spheres. At a press conference held in Kazan following the 2024 BRICS Summit recently, a Cameroonian journalist asked the Russian president: “Mr President, we are aware of the fact that many African countries have fallen victim to terrorism and other destabilising actions. At the same time, we see Russia helping the Central African Republic and other Sahel countries. Before Russia’s involvement, other countries were present there, but only after Russia’s intervention did we see many of these countries stabilized. So, my question is: is it not time for Russia to deepen this kind of partnership with African states not only in the military sphere but in other spheres as well?”
The Russian president responded to what he openly described as “a very important question,” thus: “I fully agree with you,” adding: “This is the point of our cooperation with BRICS partner countries.” According to him, “Creating an investment platform within BRICS is precisely the goal of our efforts.”
“Our experts suggest that the economies of countries like Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and others will develop at a steady and positive pace,” Putin said before pointing out: “However, there are regions around the world where growth will go at a very fast pace. These are primarily South Asian and African countries. This is exactly why we, within BRICS, are addressing the issue of creating a new investment platform using the latest electronic tools.”
The goal, Putin mentioned, is to create a system that could – surprisingly enough, be non-inflationary and to create proper conditions for investing in efficiently and quickly developing markets worldwide, especially in Africa.
“Why do we think that? I believe many will agree with me [that] there are several reasons for that. Firstly, these countries are experiencing significant population growth. … I spoke with the Prime Minister of India. They have a yearly population growth of ten million people. That means ten million more people in India every year. Africa is growing rapidly as well.”
Secondly, he said, “These regions of the world are less urbanised, but urbanisation will definitely ramp up, and both the people and countries will strive to catch up with the living standards in other regions of the world, including Europe.”
“All of that, and some other factors,” such as “capital accumulation,” which Putin observed “will happen … and is already happening,” suggest that “we should focus on these regions around the world.”
He then announced: “We, in BRICS, are trying to create a working group at the BRICS New Development Bank in order to develop mechanisms for effective and reliable investment in these countries. I believe this will benefit everyone, including the investors and the recipient countries. New production facilities will be created, which will be efficient and ensure a return on investment.”
To achieve this, Putin proposed: “We need to create tools that are immune to external risks, especially those of a political nature. I think we can do this. This is the path we will follow.”
The BRICS
The BRICS bloc, founded in 2009, initially comprised Brazil, Russia, India, and China. South Africa joined in 2010 and attended its first summit in 2011. In January 2024, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates joined, too. Saudi Arabia, as well, has been invited to join while 35 others are knocking on the door of the global-south consortium which seeks to be a counterweight to the US-led West. Russia currently chairs the group, which seeks to create an alternative world order.
Ahead of the 2024 XVI BRICS Summit in Kazan in the Russian Federation, Mr Putin said the group’s expansion is a “strong indication of the growing authority of the association and its role in international affairs.”
“The countries in our association are essentially the drivers of global economic growth. In the foreseeable future, BRICS will generate the main increase in global GDP,” CNBC reported Putin as saying to officials and businessmen ahead of the summit, adding: “The economic growth of BRICS members will increasingly depend less on external influence or interference. This is essentially economic sovereignty.”
Among the more than 20 leaders who attended the summit were China’s Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
According to the BBC, the BRICS nations account for 45% of the global population. Added together, members’ economies are worth more than $28.5tn (£22tn). That’s around 28% of the global economy.
Russia’s ties with Africa outside of the BRICS bloc
On its own, Russia has mainly been a security player on the African continent. This has been through the Wagner Group, renamed the Africa Corps following the death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in a plane crash on 27 August 2023. The crash came after the 62-year-old mercenary’s brief mutiny against Putin’s army which was later ironed out between the two parties with a promise by the Kremlin that he would be left scot-free and allowed to resettle in Belarus. After what was speculated as Prigozhin’s comeuppance, the Wagner Group in Africa got merged into a new Africa Corp under the direct control of Russia’s Defence Ministry. Since 2024, the paramilitary force’s operations have been directly controlled by Putin.
The group, according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), has operated in several African countries since 2017, “often providing its clients with direct military support and related security services alongside propaganda efforts.” Since its emergence in 2014 during Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the Wagner Group has operated in Syria and several African countries, according to CFR, where many of its operations focus on security issues. “It has often provided security services and paramilitary assistance and launched disinformation campaigns for troubled regimes in exchange for resource concessions and diplomatic support,” CFR said, noting that it is “most active in the Central African Republic (CAR), Libya, Mali, and Sudan, all of which have a tenuous relationship with the West due to colonial legacies and inherent political differences.” Also, the BBC notes that Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso – three Central Sahelian countries with close ties to Russia and Wagner – have all experienced military takeovers in recent years. These countries then expelled all French and US troops and leaned towards their Russian allies.
Russia’s dis(information) campaign in Africa
In 2019, an internal memo of the Wagner Group published by Le Monde, read: “Africa is a region of the world where the interests of all global powers converge. A state’s position on the international stage depends directly on its influence on the African continent.”
And, indeed, the group has been an active player in Russia’s misinformation and disinformation drive in many African countries. In its 1st August 2023 article titled: ‘How the Russian propaganda machine works in Africa,’ Le Monde wrote that since the first Russia-Africa summit in Sochi in 2019, Prigozhin set up a sophisticated propaganda machine to try and restore his country’s diplomatic influence, lost a quarter of a century ago with the collapse of the USSR. Its objective was to promote the “dissemination of information about Russian and Soviet support.”
According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS), “Russia continues to be the primary purveyor of disinformation in Africa, sponsoring 80 documented campaigns, targeting more than 22 countries.” The Center says, “This represents nearly 40 per cent of all disinformation campaigns in Africa,” noting: “These 80 campaigns have reached many millions of [social media] users through tens of thousands of coordinated fake pages and posts.”
The Centre explains: “Aggressively leveraging disinformation is a mainstay of Russia’s use of irregular channels to gain influence in Africa.” It notes that” “Russia’s approach is distinctive among external actors in that Moscow typically relies on irregular (and frequently extra-legal) means to expand its influence—deployment of mercenaries, disinformation, election interference, support for coups, and arms for resources deals, among others. This low-cost, high-influence strategy seeks to advance a very different world order than the rules-based, democratic political systems to which most Africans aspire. The outcomes from Russia’s interventions in Africa, therefore, will have far-reaching implications for governance norms and security on the continent.”
Russia, in the analysis of the Center, “has promulgated disinformation to undermine democracy in at least 19 African countries, contributing to the continent’s backsliding on this front.”
Shaping Russia’s narratives through ‘press tours’ – a subtle influence of African journalists
Additionally, the BBC documents that Russia also indirectly, and rather subtly, influences African journalists’ viewpoints by taking them on sponsored tours. In an article titled: “Russia in Africa: Building Influence With War ‘Tours’ and Graffiti,” the BBC explained how African journalists’ views on the war in Ukraine tilted towards Russia following one of such tours.
“In June 2024, a group of bloggers and reporters from eight countries were invited for a seven-day ‘press tour’ of the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. The trip was organised by Russian state media and Western-sanctioned Russian officials, and the journalists visited the African Initiative’s headquarters in Moscow. Throughout the visit, the reporters were accompanied by Russian officials and traveled with the Russian military in vehicles marked with the Z sign – the symbol of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” recalled the BBC.
“Russia uses these guided tours as a way of propagating certain narratives,” Beverly Ochieng, senior analyst at Control Risks and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies told the BBC, noting that China organises similar tours.
Ms Ochieng noted that having African journalists report on their trips gives an “impression of authenticity” because they “reach out to the audience on languages they recognise”, rather than looking like it is part of “a wider campaign used to portray Russia in a positive light.”
Russia’s African Initiatives as a ‘disinformation tool’
In February 2024, the US Department of State’s Global Engagement Center, said it was “exposing” Russia’s intelligence services for providing material support and guidance to the “African Initiative,” which the US government described as “a new information agency focused on Africa-Russia relations that has spread disinformation regarding the United States and European countries.”
In a press statement titled: ‘The Kremlin’s Efforts to Spread Deadly Disinformation in Africa,’ the US Department of State published on its website that the Kremlin’s disinformation campaign in Africa includes the African Initiative’s recruitment of “African journalists, bloggers, and members of local publics to support and amplify the organisation’s work of bolstering Russia’s image and denigrating that of other countries.” The US government said: “One of African Initiative’s first major campaigns is to target U.S. and Western health initiatives in Africa with dangerous health-related disinformation. The campaign seeks to undermine U.S.-funded public health projects across Africa beginning with disinformation regarding an outbreak of a mosquito-borne viral disease.”
The US Department of State continued: “From there, conspiracies will be spread about Western pharmaceutical corporations, health-focused philanthropic efforts, and the spread of disease in West and East Africa.” It said the main actors involved in the disinformation drive were the “Chief Editor of the African Initiative, Artem Sergeyevich Kureyev, who is also the General Director of Initsiativa-23, publicly registered to an office in Moscow.”
According to the US Department of State, “Some members of the African Initiative were recruited from the disintegrating enterprises of the late Yevgeniy Prigozhin,” adding: “The organisation already has local offices in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and Bamako, Mali; and is hosting events on the ground.”
The US government accused the Kremlin of “disinformation laundering” to “appear organic.” It explained: “African Initiative primarily spreads its disinformation and propaganda via numerous branded and unbranded social media accounts. Two of its main accounts are ‘African Initiative’ and ‘African Kalashnikov.’ The organisation is highly active on its website, afrinz.ru, and VKontakte, and uses these platforms and others amplified by additional pro-Russian accounts. The popular Telegram channel ‘Smile and Wave’ is a frequent amplifier of African Initiative content.”
It also warned: “Foreign information manipulation remains a critical threat around the world, as authoritarian actors like the Russian government use it to exacerbate social divisions, skew national discourse, and fundamentally disrupt people’s ability to make informed decisions for themselves and their communities. By supporting this disinformation network, the Russian government is actively harming the countries it targets and the African continent as a whole.”
In one instance, the U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement Center said it “exposed the Kremlin’s attempts to undermine global support for Ukraine by covertly spreading disinformation in Latin America. The core tactic in that campaign involved laundering Moscow-produced content through local individuals and groups to make pro-Kremlin disinformation and propaganda seem organic to the communities in which it was spread. Following the disruption of that operation, the Russian government is now trying the same tactic in Africa with a new set of actors and entities.”
The US government warned: “Foreign information manipulation is a dangerous and destabilising tactic, but it is especially damaging when targeting health information. This Kremlin disinformation campaign must come to an immediate end before it poses an even greater risk to health security in Africa.”
According to Disinfo.africa, one of the leading figures of the Burkina Faso-based African Initiatives is Viktor Lukovenko, who has been variously described in several publications as a ‘self-professed Russian expert in West Africa.’ An article titled: ‘From murderer to leading Russian expert in West Africa’ published by Disinfo.africa on 27 May 2024, said Lukovenko served five years of an eight-year prison sentence for the attack and murder of 58-year-old Swiss citizen Anthony Kunanayaku during a nationalist rally in Moscow on 4 November 2009.
The publication reveals that since the release of the self-styled West African expert from the maximum-security camp in the Republic of Buryatia in 2015, “he has been roped into the world of information manipulation and peddling dangerous propaganda about Ukraine and West Africa.”
A 9th March 2024 publication by Le Monde said the pro-Wagner pundit, also known as Viktor Vasiliev, is a former member of deceased Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s propaganda network and “has been travelling discreetly across politically unstable African countries since the Wagner Group was dismantled earlier in 2024.”
The article said Lukovenko, who presents himself as a tourist and blogger on his Telegram channel ‘Smile and Wave’, has been documented touring Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Niger.
According to the Africa Report, the African Initiative network has largely taken over the African communications operations of the Wagner Group and relies on digital extensions on the continent through sponsored local media such as radio in the Central African Republic; and Telegram channels with a large following.
Disinfo.africa reports that on April 18 2024, Lukovenko posted a message on his Telegram channel stating that he is the founder and financier of the African Initiative Association. “Lukovenko admitted to founding the association but denied being its leader, saying a Burkinabé needed to fill the role. As[JS1] well as promoting Russia in Africa on its Telegram channel, the African Initiative Association organises sports tournaments and Russian movie screenings, in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou,” the report noted.
The goal of the African Initiative, asserts the Africa Report, “is to produce and disseminate content designed to position Russia as an ally to African countries against the harmful influences of Western nations, particularly France.”
Per the Africa Report’s narrative, the propaganda channels of the African Initiative “recently circulated the arrest in the Central African Republic of two Franco-Algerians, alleged without evidence, to be French mercenaries working for armed groups seeking to overthrow Central African President Faustin-Archange Touadera.” The disinformation was subsequently amplified by social media influencers such as Nathalie Yamb and Kemi Seba.
Analysis
Russia realises the need to have not only some level of influence on the African continent, as it aims to establish a Moscow-led new multipolar world order as a counterweight to the US-led Western bipolar order and Putin is leveraging information (or disinformation) to achieve that. Putin knows that ‘disinformation’ can be even more powerful than ‘information’ and, so, buffeting the continent with his ‘best’ version of information – disinformation – to win over the minds of Africans in disfavour to the US-led West’s interests while surreptitiously advancing its hidden interests. Africans may be blind to the Russian disinformation onslaught because it serves the temporary purpose of providing much-needed justification for the actions – unconstitutional and inhumane – of the few leaders on the continent who have either taken over the reins of affairs of their respective countries or, in the process of doing so through means that do not align with democratic values and tenets. So, for now, these African leaders find a friend and ally in Putin’s Russia while the Kremlin also sees a perfect opportunity to intricately weave Russia into the core fibre that makes up Africa – politically, economically and culturally.
The strategy, however, is to the eventual favour of Russia. It will gain a foothold on the continent’s political affairs and once that is achieved, control over the economic, cultural and psyche of the continent becomes a no-brainer. This is how a continent, a culture, and a people are insipidly enslaved with their glaring acquiescence.
And the best opportunity for disinformation is election time. Therefore, as African countries go to the polls to elect new leaders, they must be wary of the information war being waged on the continent by not only Russia but also various interest groups who have turned the continent into a geopolitical proxy war front with disinformation as their main weapon of mass destruction.
As Putin himself observed at the BRICS Summit, Africa will see rapid economic growth in the coming decades. This means the continent presents a perfect opportunity for Russia to tap into that projected economic growth and the best way to do that is by being at the very centre of Africa’s scheme of affairs politically and having some high level of control of Africa’s leaders. Africa’s natural resources (oil, gold, bauxite, uranium, forests, lithium, platinum, cobalt, diamond, manganese, water, arable land, fauna, etc.) are a Russian target. Africa’s people are a target. Africa’s culture is a target. Africa’s literature is a target. The minds of Africa’s people are a target. The very essence of Africanness is a target.
Conclusion
It is, therefore, important for Africa to put in measures to detect and then counter all forms of Russian-inspired disinformation to safeguard the sanctity and sovereignty of the continent. African leaders must not sacrifice the continent’s future and sovereignty on the platter of self-serving temporary comforts. They must see the bigger picture and rally together as allies in arms to fight off this new-age information war before it gets taken over and partitioned, once again, among foreign powers.
[JS1]What does this mean please?
