Russia Expands African Influence Using Threefold Strategy

On 8 Novem­ber 2024, the For­eign Pol­i­cy Research Insti­tute report­ed that Rus­sia is deploy­ing a sophis­ti­cat­ed three-pronged strat­e­gy using its Ortho­dox Church, gov­ern­ment agen­cies, and cul­tur­al foun­da­tions to expand its influ­ence across Africa while posi­tion­ing itself as an anti-West­ern alter­na­tive. The arti­cle begins:

Russ­ian infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions in Africa are mul­ti­di­men­sion­al, mal­leable, and oppor­tunis­tic. It is hard to find a sphere of social life where Rus­sians are not present—from dai­ly life of small vil­lages to coop­er­a­tion in the nuclear sphere and space indus­try. The con­tent of Russ­ian com­mu­ni­ca­tion is designed to be effi­cient in all dimen­sions of infor­ma­tion envi­ron­ments of the tar­get coun­tries, and it is pre­sent­ed by three groups of actors: Russ­ian top gov­ern­ment offi­cials, the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Russ­ian pub­lic diplo­ma­cy includ­ing Rossotrud­nich­est­vo, Russkiy Mir Foun­da­tion, and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions. While the con­tent of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and its style dif­fers depend­ing on the group of com­mu­ni­ca­tors and the tar­get audi­ence, a gen­er­al frame of a grand nar­ra­tive, and even ide­o­log­i­cal frame­work, exists par­tic­u­lar­ly for the African coun­tries. Russ­ian offi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion car­ried out by top diplo­mats and by Pres­i­dent Putin him­self is built on the basic Russ­ian strate­gic nar­ra­tive. This nar­ra­tive focus­es on the neces­si­ty to tear down the exist­ing, West­ern-led sys­tem of inter­na­tion­al law and insti­tu­tions to cre­ate a new mul­ti­po­lar world order. Rus­sia presents this nar­ra­tive to African coun­tries as the idea of fight­ing against West­ern neo­colo­nial­ism and fin­ish­ing the process of decol­o­niza­tion. This is a grand and mul­ti­lay­ered frame­work that cov­ers nar­ra­tives in a broad num­ber of spheres: from inter­na­tion­al pol­i­tics and eco­nom­ics to his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry and the ideation­al part of Russ­ian infor­ma­tion operations.

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Key Points:

1. Rus­sia frames itself as a lib­er­a­tor from West­ern “neo­colo­nial­ism” while pro­mot­ing mod­ern­iza­tion partnerships
2. The Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church has estab­lished pres­ence in 26 African countries
3. Rossotrud­nich­est­vo is cre­at­ing “Russ­ian Hous­es” in sev­en African nations with plans for five more
4. Rus­si­a’s influ­ence strat­e­gy com­bines reli­gious, cul­tur­al, and gov­ern­men­tal approaches