International Courant
AFP
Teenage soccer gamers take heed to the Russian nationwide anthem earlier than a match. Close by, artists paint a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin on a wall throughout a graffiti competition.
Welcome to Burkina Faso, one of many African international locations the place Russia is increasing its actions to achieve affect.
Proof from the BBC exhibits that Russia is utilizing media and cultural initiatives to draw African journalists, influencers and college students, whereas spreading deceptive data.
These occasions are promoted by African Initiative, a lately fashioned Russian media group that describes itself as an “data bridge between Russia and Africa.” It inherited constructions beforehand arrange by the dismantled Wagner mercenary group and is believed by consultants to have ties to Russian safety companies.
African Initiative was based in September 2023, a month after Wagner’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a airplane crash. The initiative welcomes former staff of his disbanded firms.
Efforts are primarily targeted on the three military-led international locations of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
Following latest coups, these West African international locations have distanced themselves from Western allies like France, criticizing their failed interventions towards jihadist teams and colonial legacies, and have turned as an alternative to Russia.
Along with native cultural occasions, African Initiative maintains a information web site with tales in Russian, English, French and Arabic, in addition to a video channel and 5 Telegram channels, one in every of which has practically 60,000 subscribers.
Some Telegram channels had been “recycled” from older channels arrange by teams affiliated with Wagner. They had been the primary to advertise the Russian Protection Ministry’s Africa Corps paramilitary group, which successfully changed Wagner’s navy wing in West Africa.
Professional-Kremlin narratives and deceptive data, particularly about the USA, are widespread.
Tales on the African Initiative web site counsel, with out proof, that the US is utilizing Africa as a manufacturing and testing floor for organic weapons, constructing on the Kremlin’s long-maligned disinformation campaigns.
One story echoes the Kremlin’s unsubstantiated claims concerning the relocation of U.S. biolabs from Ukraine to Africa. One other story claims with out proof that U.S. biolabs are increasing on the continent, alleging that “below the guise of analysis and humanitarian initiatives, the African continent is changing into a Pentagon testing floor,” suggesting that secret organic experiments are being performed there.
Whereas Prigozhin’s propaganda efforts had been aimed primarily at France, the African Initiative is “to a higher extent aimed toward Individuals,” mentioned researcher Jedrzej Czerep, head of the Center East and Africa Program on the Polish Institute of Worldwide Affairs. “It’s rather more anti-American.”
Russian diary (Telegram channel)
A Ghanaian journalist, Ivy Setordjie, revealed a sequence of experiences during which she described Russian-occupied cities in Ukraine as “battle zones in Russia”
In June, a bunch of bloggers and reporters from eight international locations had been invited on a seven-day “press tour” of Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. The journey was organized by Russian state media and Western-sanctioned Russian officers, and the journalists visited the headquarters of the African Initiative in Moscow.
“Africa did not get a lot data (concerning the warfare),” Raymond Agbadi, a Ghanaian blogger and educational who studied in Russia and took half within the “press journey,” informed the BBC. “No matter data we received, it wasn’t convincing sufficient to grasp what the warfare was actually about.”
Additionally current on the go to was American influencer Jackson Hinkle, an outspoken supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin who has unfold a number of false claims about Ukraine.
After visiting Moscow, the journalists traveled 1,250 km (780 miles) to the Ukrainian port metropolis of Mariupol within the Donetsk area. They then visited cities within the Zaporizhzhia area – all areas captured by Russia early in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Through the go to, the reporters had been accompanied by Russian officers and traveled with the Russian navy in autos bearing the Z signal – the image of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In Could, African Initiative organised a separate ‘press journey’ to Russian-occupied Mariupol for a delegation of bloggers from Mali.
Press journeys for journalists are a typical instrument to promote a rustic’s positions. However whereas “Western media shops do a variety of progressive coaching (for journalists) to cowl necessary points which have grow to be international considerations, Russia makes use of these excursions as a method to push sure tales,” says Beverly Ochieng, a senior analyst at Management Dangers and the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research, who notes that China organizes related journeys.
When African journalists report on their travels, it provides an “impression of authenticity” as a result of they’re “reaching audiences in languages they recognise”, moderately than showing to be a part of “a broader marketing campaign to painting Russia in a constructive gentle”, Ms Ochieng mentioned.
In tales revealed after the journey, the African journalists referred to Ukrainian cities occupied by Russian troops as “battle zones in Russia” and quoted Russian-installed authorities, echoing Russian state propaganda and the Kremlin’s view of Ukraine’s borders.
In an article revealed on JoyOnline, an English-language web site operated by the Multimedia Group, Ghanaian journalist Ivy Setordjie writes that Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia area (whose capital is below Ukrainian management) “is positioned within the south of European Russia.”
She tells the BBC she disagrees that the areas had been illegally annexed by Russia, claiming her experiences mirror her personal judgment and are “not within the nation’s favour.”
mariupol-news.ru
African journalists had been taken on a seven-day tour of the occupied territories of Ukraine
Along with press journeys, native companions of African Initiative within the Sahel area of West Africa are actively concerned in group outreach initiatives to enhance Russia’s picture.
The BBC displays the African Initiative’s Telegram channels and Fb pages, the place movies, photographs and experiences of their work on the bottom are shared.
In Burkina Faso, we discovered experiences of a soccer competitors that includes the Russian nationwide anthem, “friendship classes” in colleges the place college students had been taught about Russia, a contest within the Soviet martial artwork “sambo,” first support workshops for civilians and cops, and a graffiti competition the place contributors depicted Russian President Vladimir Putin alongside former Burkina Faso chief Thomas Sankara, all sponsored by the African Initiative.
The images additionally present members of the African Initiative distributing messages to native folks and a screening close by of the Wagner-backed documentary The Vacationer, a few group of Wagner instructors within the Central African Republic, the place Wagner and his splinter teams have been. helping the federal government in its combat towards rebels for a number of years.
“The unique concept with African Initiative was to erase all the things that Prigozhin had developed and change it with one thing new. Later within the course of it turned out that it was extra rational to truly reuse all of the property that had been already there,” says researcher Mr. Czerep from the Polish Institute of Worldwide Affairs.
The FSB, Russia’s Federal Safety Service, performs a key function within the new group, he notes. The pinnacle and editor of African Initiative is Artyom Kureyev, recognized by Russia consultants as an agent of Russia’s Federal Safety Service. Mr. Kureyev is linked to the Valdai Membership, a Moscow-based suppose tank near President Putin.
On the African Initiative web site, Anna Zamaraeva, a former press officer for Wagner, is listed as deputy editor-in-chief.
Viktor Lukovenko, referred to as one in every of Prigozhin’s “political technologists,” arrange the African Initiative’s workplace in Burkina Faso however left the publish in latest months. A former Russian nationalist with a legal document, Mr. Lukovenko spent 5 years in jail for an assault in Moscow on a Swiss citizen who later died.
We contacted African Initiative for remark. The Moscow workplace confirmed that it had acquired our questions however had not responded. We additionally contacted the Russian authorities however didn’t obtain a response.
In February, an article on the African Initiative web site responded to a US State Division report, stating that the editorial board “insists that the aim is to unfold data about Africa in Russia and to popularize Russia in African international locations,” which might “give totally different Africans the chance to be heard, together with their criticism of Western international locations.”
In the meantime, the group continues to accentuate its outreach within the Sahel. Within the final week of August, about 100 college students in Burkina Faso attended a lecture on coaching alternatives in Russia.
“I discovered loads about Russian tradition and relations between our governments,” a smiling teenager sporting a T-shirt with the African Initiative emblem mentioned in a video recorded after the dialog.
Extra about Wagner in Africa:
Constructing affect with warfare excursions and graffiti
World Information,Subsequent Large Factor in Public Knowledg
