Russian Disinformation Operations in Africa: Kremlin Bot Farms Exposed

Rus­sia has made sig­nif­i­cant inroads in Africa—particularly in Burk­i­na Faso, the Cen­tral African Repub­lic and Mali—deploying mil­i­tary oper­a­tions that, while lim­it­ed in scope, are often dev­as­tat­ing for local civil­ian pop­u­la­tions. At the same time, Moscow has devel­oped a pow­er­ful pro­pa­gan­da machine that taps into exist­ing antipa­thy towards Europe, par­tic­u­lar­ly France, to push African gov­ern­ments clos­er to its for­eign pol­i­cy objec­tives. Euro­peans have no gen­uine, res­olute part­ner in Africa today. Most gov­ern­ments and elites are skil­ful­ly hedg­ing their bets between Europe and Rus­sia. Like-mind­ed Africans and Euro­peans should push back with com­pre­hen­sive sanc­tions on enablers, counter-dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns, a re-eval­u­a­tion of out­dat­ed devel­op­ment mod­els, stronger mil­i­tary aid, and sup­port for influ­encers who can chal­lenge Rus­sia-aligned nar­ra­tives in local net­works. Day and night, week in and week out, thou­sands of Russ­ian agents, prox­ies, Krem­lin-con­trolled media out­lets, co-opt­ed jour­nal­ists and paid influ­encers weave a com­pelling sto­ry for Africa. In this fan­ta­sy, Rus­sia is a cham­pi­on of free­dom, sov­er­eign­ty and African dignity.

Read more: https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-bear-and-the-bot-farm-countering-russian-hybrid-warfare-in-africa/

Key Points

• Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion oper­a­tions deploy thou­sands of agents, prox­ies, Krem­lin-con­trolled media out­lets, and paid influ­encers to spread pro­pa­gan­da nar­ra­tives cham­pi­oning Rus­sia as a free­dom cham­pi­on in Africa.
• Burk­i­na Faso’s pres­i­dent Ibrahim Tra­oré became a cult icon through AI-gen­er­at­ed endorse­ments from Pope Leo XIV, Rihan­na, and Bey­on­cé, with fake videos claim­ing indus­tri­al renais­sance viewed mil­lions of times.
• Russ­ian agents embed­ded in Burk­i­na Faso’s intel­li­gence ser­vice in late 2023 assist the jun­ta in mon­i­tor­ing oppo­nents, run­ning influ­ence oper­a­tions, and train­ing pro­pa­gan­dists to spread pro-Krem­lin narratives.
• Moscow’s bot farms and dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns reshape pub­lic dis­course across Africa, under­min­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic progress while trick­ing thou­sands into slav­ery in Ukraine or ammu­ni­tion factories.

Russian Disinformation Operations in Africa: Government Agencies, Religious Institutions, and Cultural Foundations

Rus­sia deploys a sophis­ti­cat­ed three-pronged strat­e­gy to expand influ­ence across Africa, com­bin­ing gov­ern­ment agen­cies, reli­gious insti­tu­tions, and cul­tur­al foun­da­tions to posi­tion itself as a lib­er­a­tor from West­ern neo­colo­nial­ism while pro­mot­ing mod­ern­iza­tion part­ner­ships. This approach exploits long­stand­ing griev­ances about for­eign inter­fer­ence and cap­i­tal­izes on the Sovi­et Union’s anti-impe­ri­al­ist legacy.

At the oper­a­tional cen­ter stands the Wag­n­er Group, which pro­vid­ed secu­ri­ty and para­mil­i­tary sup­port in mul­ti­ple African nations before tran­si­tion­ing to the Africa Corps under direct Russ­ian Min­istry of Defense con­trol in 2024. Start­ing in 2017, Wag­n­er oper­at­ed in Sudan, the Cen­tral African Repub­lic, Libya, and Mali, lever­ag­ing Rus­si­a’s “shad­ow state” net­works of politi­co-oli­garchic indi­vid­u­als that inter­sect with secu­ri­ty ser­vices. The group’s busi­ness mod­el pro­vid­ed secu­ri­ty for vul­ner­a­ble regimes in exchange for access to nat­ur­al resources, par­tic­u­lar­ly gold mines, while Russ­ian forces gained access to strate­gic air­bas­es and ports. Fol­low­ing Prigozhin’s 2023 death, the Africa Corps deployed to Burk­i­na Faso, Niger, and Mali, main­tain­ing Rus­si­a’s mil­i­tary footprint.

The Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church estab­lished a grow­ing role in spread­ing Russ­ian influ­ence in Africa through reli­gious out­reach, with pres­ence in 26 African coun­tries. In Decem­ber 2021, Moscow cre­at­ed the Patri­ar­chal Exar­chate of Africa, direct­ly chal­leng­ing the Patri­ar­chate of Alexan­dri­a’s author­i­ty. The Russ­ian church recruits African Ortho­dox priests through mate­r­i­al incen­tives, offer­ing human­i­tar­i­an aid, infra­struc­ture, and finan­cial sup­port. Priests receive pay­ments of $200 for switch­ing alle­giance from Alexan­dria to Moscow, with this eccle­si­as­ti­cal expan­sion coor­di­nat­ing with Krem­lin geopo­lit­i­cal objec­tives as church lead­er­ship col­lab­o­rates with Russ­ian embassies and intel­li­gence services.

Rossotrud­nich­est­vo, the Russ­ian agency respon­si­ble for admin­is­ter­ing civil­ian for­eign aid and cul­tur­al exchange,  dra­mat­i­cal­ly increased its bud­get from $77 mil­lion to $1.5 bil­lion annu­al­ly, estab­lish­ing “Russ­ian Hous­es” as cul­tur­al cen­ters through­out Africa. The agen­cy’s Novoe Pokole­nie pro­gram brought 921 par­tic­i­pants to Rus­sia in 2024, with 264 from Africa, pro­vid­ing train­ing at pro­pa­gan­da out­lets RT and Sput­nik. Moscow spon­sors 80 doc­u­ment­ed dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns across 22 African coun­tries, employ­ing pio­neer­ing mod­els of dis­in­for­ma­tion to gain polit­i­cal influ­ence. These cam­paigns pro­mote anti­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic mes­sages while sup­port­ing mil­i­tary jun­tas, with two promi­nent influ­encers com­mand­ing over 28 mil­lion social media followers.

The effec­tive­ness man­i­fests in tan­gi­ble out­comes as many African coun­tries abstained from vot­ing on Rus­si­a’s sus­pen­sion from the UN Human Rights Coun­cil and refused to com­ply with West­ern sanc­tions. Russ­ian nar­ra­tives about Ukraine con­tin­ue to res­onate, with objec­tives to sway African coun­tries to sup­port Russ­ian actions and secure Moscow’s region­al influ­ence, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Sahel where mil­i­tary jun­tas have formed Russ­ian-backed alliances.

Exter­nal References:
— Rus­si­a’s Africa Corps Takes Over From the Wag­n­er Group
— As Rus­sia Builds Influ­ence in Africa, its Church Takes a Role
— Map­ping a Surge of Dis­in­for­ma­tion in Africa

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