Pro-Russian materials, which present a distorted version of the war in Ukraine and support Russia’s interests in Africa, enjoy a growing audience on the continent, writes the New York Times, citing Rador.

In South Africa, the influencer, who added the name “Vladimir” to his Twitter page to emphasize his admiration for the Russian president, broadcasts Russian content on Twitter and Telegram, which now has an audience of more than 148,000 followers.

On Afrique Média, a Cameroonian television channel watched by millions in Africa that recently signed a partnership with Russian state broadcaster RT, fans regularly praise Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with one even recently shouting “Glory to Putin!”

In an animated video streaming online, a Russian mercenary from Wagner’s group can be seen fighting in Ukraine on Russia’s side, joining West African soldiers to defeat a horde of “zombies” from France.

Over the past year, pro-Russian material has increasingly appeared on African news channels and social networks. The messages are aimed at increasing support for the invasion of Ukraine, while at the same time wanting to promote Russia’s presence on the African continent as beneficial, while condemning the presence of the Americans and the French – especially the French – in Africa.

Among US intelligence memos recently released last week is a report showing that in February Russian military intelligence planned a propaganda campaign using African media to “turn” public opinion away from Africa, along with Russia, while distancing it from the West.

This content has been broadcast by a range of media outlets, including social media influencers, as well as news sites and television networks that have signed partnerships with Kremlin-funded operators.

Some broadcasters are linked to the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-backed network operating in several African countries that spreads disinformation and sends thousands of mercenaries to protect favorable (African) governments, gold mines and other natural resources, experts say.

“Russian fake news is being produced on an industrial scale here,” said Abdoulaye Guindo, coordinator of Benbeere, a news-verification website in Mali, a country where Wagner’s group has a massive presence. “The mastery of pro-Russian accounts is undeniable.”

At the same time, the presence of Western news sources has weakened in some regions of the continent. The BBC is sacking dozens of journalists from Africa and closing at least three channels broadcasting in African languages, all as part of a wider cutback plan.

In Mali and Burkina Faso, where pro-Russian leaders have expelled a number of French reporters, the French government-funded Radio France Internationale and France 24 have been suspended. According to a recent study by Reporters Without Borders, such bans and expulsions “have given way to media outlets that promote pro-Russian narratives.”

From the Central African Republic, passing through Madagascar and Mali and reaching South Africa, Russia wants to identify itself in Africa as a bulwark against the West. This influence caught the attention of Western governments when 26 out of 54 African nations refused to support a UN vote condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Interviews with more than 20 government officials, analysts and journalists demonstrate how media and disinformation operations advance Russian interests in Africa.

“We are dealing with a colossus,” said General Pascal Yanni, a French army official tasked with countering Russia’s disinformation operations in West Africa.

Help from China

Shortly after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, the European Union suspended the work of the Kremlin-backed TV channel RT (abbreviation of Russia Today – Russia today, – ed.).

Since then, RT has expanded its coverage in Africa, with an “English-speaking Africa hub” in Johannesburg to “broadcast the widest possible range of stories that are of interest to both local audiences and RT viewers abroad,” says Anna. Belkina, deputy editor-in-chief of RT, who answered some questions.

She says that Western powers have long sought to “obstruct our journalistic activities and stifle the perspectives that we bring to the public’s attention.”

RT’s French-language channel, RT France, has also tried to move from Europe to a French-speaking country in West Africa, according to Sega Diarrah, a journalist from Mali who says he was delegated by RT France’s president to work in that context.

These plans have not yet been implemented, so Russia is spreading its material through favorable African media and African influencers. RT and Sputnik, the Kremlin-funded news agency, have signed partnership agreements with at least ten African media outlets, according to Maxim Odiné, who tracks Russian media operations in Africa at IRSEM, a research institute linked to the French defense ministry.

In December, Afrique Média, a station broadcasting from Cameroon, a country in central Africa, announced a partnership with RT. “The end of the deceptive propaganda of the West,” the station’s “herald” reads.

Sputnik has changed the name of its French-language service, previously intended only for audiences in France, to Sputnik Afrique. Currently, most of its traffic comes from African countries. In Mali, the radio station in Bamako became a broadcaster of Sputnik information every night.

There is also evidence that a number of Chinese companies are helping spread Russian intelligence in Africa. Beijing’s Star Times satellite channel continued to reach viewers with RT news, even though a number of companies dropped the channel after the war.

Through a cooperation agreement, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua translated a number of materials from the Russian news agency Interfax, which were later picked up by the Democratic Republic of Congo and other countries. Some articles falsely claimed that the United States kept chemical weapons in Ukraine, according to Dana Madrid-Morales, a disinformation expert at the University of Sheffield.

Russian heroes and French “bait”.

According to the company itself, between 2019 and 2022, Meta removed at least eight different networks with accounts targeting African audiences from Facebook and Instagram. According to the same source, many were associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner network. Several Facebook pages in Mali also promoted messages in support of Wagner just as Wagner’s mercenaries began arriving in the country last year.

Since then, press companies have become more sophisticated and more visible, as a French army general says.

In an animated video that circulated on social media last year, a commander in a uniform with a Russian flag and the logo of Wagner’s group jumps out of a helicopter to come to the aid of two captured African soldiers from Mali and Burkina-Bin.

Together, African soldiers and their Russian allies defeat France, a former colonial power, in the form of ghosts, menacing zombie skeletons and a giant snake. At the end of the video, the three head to Ivory Coast, traditionally an ally of the West.

“We are happy to help you,” a Russian soldier tells his West African comrades.

A number of officials, from both intelligence agencies and African and Western militaries, expressed concern about both the message and its format, as the cartoons could also reach people who could not read.

Russia and the West have long been fighting for influence in Africa, and such influence operations and the presence of mercenaries are not a Russian invention.

But with Russia ostracized by much of the Western world for its invasion of Ukraine, the country is now betting on bringing as many African countries into its orbit as possible. And the Russian press has influence, as Yuriy Pyvovarov, the ambassador of Ukraine to Senegal and four other West African countries, says.

“If African states are so attached to neutrality, which they respect at all costs, why are they so attached to Russian stories?” Pivovarov asked in an interview.

Pro-Russian coverage of the war in Ukraine still dominates the news on television channels such as Afrique Média, potentially shaping the opinions of entire generations of viewers.

Henri Doue Tai, 80, a retired oil company executive, watches the canal from his apartment in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s largest city. A framed photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin stands among other photos of family members.

Next to him is his 41-year-old nephew Serzh Bach, a petroleum engineer with a Moscow education. Bach says he prefers to watch Afrique Média and Russia Today or some lesser-known Telegram channel that provides updates on the war in French.

Bach argues that unlike Western sources that provide biased news about the war in Ukraine, these sources are independent.

“This is first-hand material,” he says.

New York Times, (acquisition of Rador)