Getting It Right about Russia-Friendly Voices in Africa: 3 Traps to Avoid

Voices sympathetic to Russia are widespread in the African public debate. While both formal and clandestine Russia-linked networks are extensively used to influence public sentiment, this only explains part of the story. To understand why many African states refrain from condemning Russian aggression towards Ukraine in the UN and why – as in Niger – Russian flags accompany political turbulence, a deep dive into the local drivers of the debate is required.

Followers of the expert debate on disinformation all too often reduce African voices declaring sympathy or understanding towards Russia’s position regarding the West or Ukraine to the effects of disinformation and propaganda. From this viewpoint, debaters from Africa passively consume talking points thrown out by Russia and amplified by bots and agents of influence, rendering African intellectual agency virtually non-existent. Extensive research on the paths leading both online influencers and genuine African debaters towards common ground with Russia on Ukraine has exposed the key role of locally rooted perspectives and motivations. Without this ‘fertile ground’, no foreign argument would stand. It is therefore key to avoid copy-paste explanations that ignore local contexts and to use more qualitative research, both of which are crucial to understanding the issue. Three of the myths about the roots of pro-Russian declarations in Africa involve the alleged implantation of certain narratives, equating the rhetorical ‘Russia’ with the real Russia, while assuming that proponents of Russia-friendly discourse serve as mere transmission belts for Kremlin disinformation.

1. Imported narratives? Criticism of continuing post-colonial dependencies, especially regarding France, which is at the centre of Russia’s messaging in Africa, developed a long time before Moscow started subscribing to it. Decades ago, when there was a coup or schools were closed in the Central African Republic, locals would say that the French were behind it. Are you hearing that ‘democracy is outdated’? New generations of youth have grown up in what was believed to be formal democratic systems, but that has not satisfied their hopes for improved livelihoods and agency. Therefore, we see that new, popular quasi-authoritarian concepts like Mali Kura (‘new Mali’ in Bambara), which rejects Western models of governance, are spreading organically without Russian help.

Are you hearing that ‘Wagner is the solution’? Despite Western military assistance, in recent years, the scale of jihadist violence in Mali and Burkina Faso has only grown. It is therefore not surprising that many see old partnerships as not good enough and would be happy to try something new, not knowing that Russia has no interest in countering extremism in Africa, nor the means to do so.

In the local context, the lack of fertile ground can kill a seemingly perfect story that Russian propagandists would love to see making the rounds. When the outgoing Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari warned that Western-supplied guns for Ukraine end up in the Lake Chad area in the hands of terrorists, the public yawned. Out of more than 200 genuine commentators on the source tweet, almost everyone pointed to this story as being inconsistent (guns already available), recycled (they had heard that same line about Libya and Syria before), and election-driven (trying to distract from the government’s shortcomings). And that was despite the same commentators eagerly embracing other conspiracies, like the one that Buhari himself was a secret sponsor of terrorists. Among French-speaking, anti-Western ‘pan-Africanists’, the same discredited story gained some traction around suspicions of French and Rwandan involvementpublic/mu-plugins/disinformation/includes/Entity/Post.php in arms smuggling.

2. Does ‘Russia’ Always Mean Russia? No, and that makes it difficult to quantify the actual echo Russia has. In fragile contexts where free expression is scarce, the words ‘Russia’ and ‘Ukraine’ sometimes serve as substitutes for debates on local wars and/or politics. Pro-government Ethiopians and Eritreans have increasingly seen parallels between their position on the 2020-2022 war against the Tigray province with that of Russia justifying its invasion of Ukraine – for example, in not calling the war a ‘war’. Similarly, the Tigrayans struggling to win international sympathy portrayed themselves as the Ukrainians of the Horn of Africa. What seemed to be a debate on war in Europe was often a game of words to discuss a local war. Similarly, the conflict in the DRC’s North Kivu province, where Rwandan-backed M23 rebels operate, is often discussed as an extension of the ‘NATO-Russia’ confrontation, where M23/Rwanda represent the pro-Ukrainian US or France, and the Congo is ‘Russia’. Kinshasa demonstrators carrying Russian flags sprayed ‘Macron=M23’ on the French embassy wall. An Angolan-Congolese activist who has advocated for re-establishing the pre-colonial ‘Great Congo’ and routinely portrays Rwanda as a US proxy called for following Russia’s example in Ukraine by retaking some of Rwanda’s provinces.

So where do all those Russian flags come from? Western media eagerly use their images in stories about alleged Russian conspiracies behind events like the coup in Niger. While sometimes flags carried by paid protesters indeed prove Russian support for certain groups on the ground, more often they serve as a mere anti-establishment symbol, not much different than wearing a ‘Che Guevara’ t-shirt, which doesn’t necessarily imply Cuban or Argentinian meddling. Like it or not, in many places across Africa, the Russian flag is the ‘new cool’. Of course, even if ‘Russia’ actually means Russia, it is often not the real Russia with its policies and mindset that is being cheered, but rather fragments of the image it projects (e.g., as a ‘better partner’), or the promise it represents (multipolarity).

Finally, the post-truth playbook applies to African debates like those in the West, and invoking ‘Russia’ is part of it. Malian youth developed a habit of knowingly spreading anti-French and pro-Russian disinformation narratives as an easy means of poking the generalised West and symbolically shaking the unloved status quo. Their friends understand not to read into it literally. Western researchers, though, don’t always get it.

3. Dance of the Zombies? A reductive view of the African infospace makes many experts believe that pro-Russian African influencers, who for objective reasons should not have any interest in supporting Russia, seem to act like propaganda zombies. In this view, Kremlin officials or Yevgeny Prigozhin’s forces ‘task’ them with spreading Russia-friendly content, and once the commentators get on board (or on the payroll), they become a firm Russian ‘asset’. Sometimes this is the case, but other times, they discuss it as long as it helps them score points on other – in their view, bigger – issues. For Kemi Seba, the most well-known opinion leader of this kind, his first priority is to counter France for more African agency. While remaining a strong pro-Russian voice in geopolitical terms, he doesn’t shy away from openly distancing himself from Russia when his credentials as an Afro-centric intellectual are at stake. Egounchi Behanzin, another very prominent voice (and an invitee to the Saint Petersburg Russia-Africa summit), while routinely defending everything Russia does, does so to strengthen his original ‘anti-imperialism’ message. Within that context, he’s probably more into Venezuela than Eastern Europe. For dozens of mostly exiled, homegrown video-commentators on Ivorian or Senegalese politics, sporadic Russophile references are more a reflection of what parts of their public consider fashionable than anything else.

Finally, some of them simply change their minds, specifically when Russia proves too weak. For example, a Nigerian (ex-?) army operative who used to repost all pro-Wagner propaganda and mock Ukrainian victims took a pause during Prigozhin’s mutiny, cleaned much of his earlier feed, and even started hailing Ukrainian victories. The latter seemed to satisfy his hunger for strong men in action better than the increasingly shaky Russia.

After one and a half years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the significant focus on Africa that it resulted in, surprisingly little attention has been paid to understanding the grassroots drivers of local debates and sentiments. An over-securitised approach that dominates the analysis of Russia’s inroads into the continent tends to overlook African intellectual agency. But that prevents us from reading between the lines. Only by placing certain declarations in the right context will we be able to properly assess the extent of Russia’s popularity, influence, and abilities.