Abstract
Africa is becoming an important strategic hub for the Russian state as Putin’s regime faces rising ostracization elsewhere. In this paper, I analyze Russian influence in Africa by examining over 1,700 pieces of online content created or re-posted by 4 Russian embassies in Ghana, Ethiopia, the Republic of the Congo, and Tanzania between January 15 and December 31, 2022. I demonstrate that, despite new developments in Russian strategic communications, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine has mostly fed pre-existing narratives rather than drastically shifting the focus or direction of state rhetoric. All four of the embassies used in the analysis promoted narratives that depicted Russia as a revisionist power going up against a “neocolonial” West, portrayed Ukraine as a neo-Nazi puppet of the West, and attempted to contrast this with Russia’s purportedly friendly relations with Africa. The scale and intensity of these narratives exploded in the leadup to and in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine—to the extent that some embassies began to focus almost exclusively on Ukraine in their communications. Meanwhile, many African nations were willing to pragmatically engage with Russia as an alternative (or complementary) ally to the West. Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, I show that the war in Ukraine has revealed the fault lines of Russian and African thinking, loyalty, and strategy.
Introduction
In April 2022, Reuters reported that scores of Ethiopians—many with previous military experience—had queued outside of the Russian embassy in Addis Ababa to volunteer to fight in the Russo-Ukrainian War (Endeshaw 2022). When interviewed by Reuters, most of the Ethiopians expressed pragmatic reasons for volunteering (i.e., unfavorable economic conditions in Ethiopia), rather than espousing any particularly pro-Russian sentiment (Endeshaw 2022). Nevertheless, it is worth noting that they showed up at the Russian embassy and not the Ukrainian embassy, perhaps driven by a viral social media myth in Ethiopia claiming that those who fought for Russia would be paid $2,000 (Endeshaw 2022).
As this incident demonstrates, Russia has considerable grassroots support in some parts of Africa. Numerous scholars, state actors, think tanks, and NGOs have recognized that social media and information warfare play a key role in Russia’s activity both in Ukraine and in Africa. For instance, Meta has identified and attempted to remove numerous “inauthentic” Russian disinformation networks that targeted African countries. Some of these networks had followings numbering in the millions. While social media falls outside of the scope of traditional realist or liberal political theory, it can be a powerful geopolitical tool. Ulf Laessing of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation argues that “Russian misinformation was a factor helping to drive the French forces out of Sahel countries, especially Burkina Faso” and replace them with the Wagner mercenary group which has ties to the Kremlin (Atanesian 2023).
However, while the Russo-Ukrainian War has led to increased scrutiny of the Russian state, Russia’s activities in Africa remain obscure. When Africa is mentioned in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian War, it is often in relation to food insecurity, African voting at the UN, or the activity of the Wagner Group both in Africa and Ukraine. Scant media or scholarly attention has been paid to the way that Russia has depicted the war in its strategic communications to Africa, as well as the way that these narratives have been received.
In this study, I examine the narratives that are promoted by Russian embassies in Africa, with a focus on how those narratives have shifted since the start of the war and over its duration. By qualitatively and quantitatively analyzing over 1,700 Twitter posts created by 4 Russian embassies in Africa, I demonstrate that Russian rhetoric in Africa has remained relatively consistent with pre-war logic, although the scale has increased and the Russian state has tweaked some of its arguments to appeal to Africa on a more regional level. I combine the quantitative and qualitative data from the study with other research to determine Russia’s policy ambitions and their congruence (or lack thereof) with publicly stated intentions. My goal is to shed light not only on how Russia presents itself to Africa, but also how Africans participate in this feedback cycle by responding to Russian communications. In doing so, I hope to add to the post-invasion geopolitical conversation by contributing qualitative and statistical data to reveal Russian and African ambitions.
Background: Africa and Russian Disinformation
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has precipitated an inevitable preoccupation with Eurasian security issues among academics. However, it is vital not to miss the global implications of the war. This is particularly true in Africa, where the conflict has revitalized Cold War-style rivalries as great powers compete for influence. While some view the end of the unipolar moment as a cataclysm, the current state of affairs is better perceived as a reversion to a much older balance of power. Indeed, Russian interest in Africa goes back centuries.
Even before the Bolshevik Revolution, tsarist Russia aided anti-imperialist struggles in Africa. This included helping Menelik II of Ethiopia defy the Italians, siding with the Afrikaaners during the Second Anglo-Boer War, and resisting the proposal for a German colony in Morocco (Abramova and Fituni 2020). It is important to note that Russia played no part in the scramble for Africa (Abramova and Fituni 2020). This is widely commented upon by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).
When the Bolsheviks came to power, it was the start of a slow but dramatic shift in the way that the Russian/Soviet state viewed the continent. Although in their eyes still politically backward, they viewed Africa as a potential bridgehead for Communist and anti-imperialist revolution that would weaken the USSR’s enemies while validating Marxism-Leninism (Brzezinski 1963; Charles 1980). One of the earliest research institutions established by Lenin came to several conclusions about Africa which would impact future generations (Charles 1980). These conclusions included: “the recognition of Africa’s strategic importance; the intention to stir Africa against the West; and the awareness of the similarity with regards to the way that the Soviets suspected that the Europeans condescendingly viewed them both” (Charles 1980). It is no coincidence that these three conclusions are also at the heart of the current Africa doctrine of the Russian MFA.
While the isolationism, xenophobia, and suspicion of Stalin’s era put a damper on much of the early Soviet enthusiasm regarding Africa, his death in 1953 and the accession of Kruschev injected new life into Soviet-African relations (Matusevich 2009). The USSR expanded its involvement in Africa in the 1960s, and became involved in several proxy wars (Matusevich 2009). As Soviet foreign policy tied itself to Africa, the Communist government met with nasty surprises. African leaders often adopted socialism with modifiers (e.g., “African socialism”), and were guided by pragmatism and regional concerns rather than ideology—at times they would switch sides between East and West, as was the case in Somalia and Ethiopia (Matusevich 2009; Brzezinski 1963). Kruschev and subsequent leaders therefore softened their ideological expectations for potential allies, speaking of their “fraternal” bond to any African country that was socialist in “orientation”—even if it was not yet a model communist state (Matusevich 2009).
Kruschev’s policy of recruiting any nominally socialist African nation led to some odd alliances but did not diminish the extent of Soviet involvement in Africa. Indeed, it is hard to overestimate the level of influence that the Soviets had: they built hundreds of industrial and agricultural facilities and gave diplomas to over 80,000 Africans (not counting another 480,000 who received “vocational training”) (Abramova and Fituni 2020).
Thus, while Soviet-African relations were often marked by pragmatic realism as well as ideology, the influence of the Soviet Union was widespread and often welcomed by African nations. Ironically, Gorbachev’s sweeping reforms and his introduction of glasnost and perestroika (openness toward the world and domestic restructuring) led to a rise in racism and xenophobia against Africans in the USSR (Matusevich 2009). The press claimed that Soviet aid abroad had led to government neglect of domestic issues (Matusevich 2009). Meanwhile, the USSR began to warm relations with apartheid South Africa, which simultaneously soured relations with the postcolonial states of Africa (Matusevich 2009). These issues were the beginning of the end for the era of warm Soviet-African relations, which came crashing down when the USSR finally fell in 1991. The results were dramatic: the value of Soviet-African trade dropped from $5.9 billion in 1985 to $0.98 billion in 1995, many Russian embassies closed or laid off staff, flight routes were canceled, and Russian-African education opportunities dwindled (Abramova and Fituni 2020). However, these historic bonds still remain important to some African nations, which—as I will show—view Russia as the successor to the USSR and therefore worthy of their respect.
Although Russian-African engagement recovered only marginally in the two decades after the collapse of the USSR, the Russian state began to turn increasingly to Africa in the late 2010s. This coincided with the aftermath of the invasion of Crimea, which shifted Putin’s position in the global order and gave the Russian government incentives to look for allies in strange places. This is made evident by the statement of Oleg Ozerov, Ambassador at Large and Head of the Secretariat at the Russian MFA:
"In recent decades, Russia's foreign policy has focused on developing relations with Western countries. Under the new conditions of the world order, the situation has changed radically. Today our country attaches particular importance to the formation of new political and economic alliances, of which the African region is one of the most important." (Russia-Africa Summit 2019, emphasis added)
Putin’s move toward Africa was driven in large part by the enigmatic mercenary leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who died in 2023 after leading an abortive coup against Putin’s regime. A former-criminal-turned-chef, Prigozhin gained Putin’s attention as a caterer at the Kremlin and subsequently became one of the trusted members of his inner circle, especially when it came to matters pertaining to Africa (The Project 2019). According to a former officer of Wagner (a shadowy constellation of Russian mercenary groups spearheaded by Prigozhin), Prigozhin’s three pillars of activity in Africa were disinformation and information warfare, mercenary activity, and natural resource exploitation (Pfeiffer 2022). In 2017, Prigozhin skillfully played to Putin’s revisionist desires by proposing to him the idea of a Russia-Africa Summit (The Project 2019). The Summit kicked off in October 2019 in Sochi, with a staggering 43 African heads of state present (Foy 2019). $12.5 billion worth in trade and arms deals were struck, and Putin promised to double trade with the continent within “four to five years” (Foy 2019).
Interestingly, Putin’s grand entry onto the African scene coincided with a major surge in Russian propaganda within Africa. Shortly before the Russia-Africa Summit, Prigozhin’s shadow network attempted to launch disinformation campaigns in Madagascar and South Africa that would favor Russia’s preferred candidates in upcoming elections (The Project 2019; Haffajee 2019). In October of 2019, the same month as the Russia-Africa Summit, Meta took down dozens of Russian-based disinformation accounts that had reached half a million users in a variety of African countries, including conflict-prone states such as Sudan, Cameroon, and the Central African Republic (CAR) (Gleicher 2019). Meta’s team identified the sources of the disinformation campaign as “entities associated with Russian financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin” (Gleicher 2019). While they no doubt suffered a temporary setback from these takedowns, Prigozhin’s shadow networks increased their efforts. They had already learned to outsource much of their disinformation to African entities, which helped cross the language gap, made it harder to trace the sources of the disinformation, and no doubt also decreased the costs of the operations (Stanford Internet Observatory 2020). In 2020, Meta removed a Russian network operating in Libya, Syria, and Sudan which in total influenced an estimated 5.7 million social media users (Stanford Internet Observatory 2020).
This rise in propaganda was accompanied by a sharpening of the tools in Russia’s disinformation kit, many of which traced their roots to the annexation of Crimea. Shortly after the annexation, Putin gave a speech which would set the tone for how the Kremlin would discuss both Ukraine and its Western sponsors. Speaking before the Duma, Putin claimed that the Maidan Revolution had been orchestrated by “nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes, and anti-Semites” (Russian Government 2019). In the narrative that the Kremlin created, Russia was the only country willing to stand up to America’s evil plans for world domination (Nimmo 2015). Putin became both hero and victim, and Ukraine became the battle ground for an information conflict between the allegedly morally bankrupt West and the courageous and pure Russia (Nimmo 2015). In 2016 and 2017, Russian state media accelerated their use of the term “Russophobia,” pairing it with an accompanying narrative that painted the West’s perceived “anti-Russian” policies as bordering on insane (Nimmo 2018). Russian propaganda once more echoed Soviet rhetoric. A common theme in Russia’s modern information machine is the use of “whataboutism,” a fallacious defense mechanism which draws attention to American or Western crimes instead of addressing criticism of Russian shortcomings (Srdanovic 2021). This modus operandi has precedence in the Cold War, when the Soviets redirected negative attention toward the Americans by pointing out the deficiencies of American race relations or other issues (Srdanovic 2021).
Rather than grounding their information strategy on transparency and established facts, the Russian state relied on four pillars of disinformation: “dismiss, distort, distract, dismay” (Nimmo 2015). Toward this end, the Kremlin has created “a network of officials, journalists, sympathetic commentators and internet trolls to create an alternative reality in which all truth is relative, and no information can be trusted” (Nimmo 2015). In January 2022, shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine, Meta took down a Russian network in Africa that had attempted to trick African journalists into writing sympathetic articles (Meta 2022). Despite the increasing scale of Russian operations, however, Meta has not prioritized tackling disinformation in Africa (Africa Center for Strategic Studies 2022). Two months after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Facebook refused to pull several inauthentic networks targeting the Sahel, even though they bore “all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation” (Africa Center for Strategic Studies 2022). This may be in part because the continent creates little revenue and requires translation to monitor properly. By April of 2022, Russia had sponsored at least 16 known and documented disinformation campaigns in Africa, undermining democracy, sovereignty, and stability on the continent (Africa Center for Strategic Studies 2022). One study conducted by The Economist shows that social media posts in support of the Russian war against Ukraine are concentrated in the Global South (particularly Sub-Saharan Africa) and involve a vast variety of language clusters (2022). Taken together, these facts show that Africa is drawing closer to the center of Russian strategy.
As I reiterate throughout this study, the Kremlin’s recent disinformation in Africa is rooted in history. In 1959 the KGB specifically created a “Dezinformatsiya Desk” in order to serve its overall aim of using disinformation to “influence foreign government decision-making, undermine confidence in the government among its own populace, cause crises and divisions between different states, cast doubt about true Soviet intentions or create confusion when trying to attribute events to Soviet interference” (DeBenedictis 2022). One such disinformation campaign attributed a 1981 coup attempt in the Seychelles to CIA interference; although false, the claim was repeated as factual by several prominent African newspapers (DeBenedictis 2022). Similar disinformation campaigns targeted the Peace Corps, claiming that it was a CIA front organization (DeBenedictis 2022). While the Western bloc was also guilty of using disinformation (and even assassination) as foreign policy tools, such tactics on the part of the Soviet Union are noteworthy because of their frequency and their influence on the strategy of President Putin, who is a former KGB officer and who perpetuates such tactics.
Research Approach
This study is situated within a widening corpus of research on the role of social media in public discourse, political activism, and state intervention/interference. While it can be extremely useful in analyzing political change, social media is relatively new as a technology and therefore requires unique theoretical approaches. As Bella Shraiman noted in the McGill International Review, realism (including its more recent iterations such as neoclassical realism) tends to focus on state rather than non-state actors (2013). Liberalism accounts better for the role of individuals and non-state actors in shaping policy, but struggles to account for malign interference in the public domain. Initial liberal euphoria over the use of social media against autocratic regimes (during the Arab Spring, for instance) has since given way to the grim realization that social media can also be used by illiberal actors (Tucker et al. 2017). Extremist groups can utilize social media as a tool by which to mobilize, and state actors can both censor and weaponize social media to their own advantage, such as through the strategic use of paid posting, harassment, and disinformation (Tucker et al. 2017). Furthermore, liberal states have struggled to demarcate the legal limit of both human and AI activity online, leading to a crisis in which malign use of social media often moves faster than government or private sector attempts to curb it (Woolley 2020, in Tucker (ed.) et al. 2020). Thus, both realism and liberalism—at least in their purest forms—are not always adequate tools with which to tackle the politicization and weaponization of social media by both state and non-state actors.
Constructivism, on the other hand, allows for the critical analysis of state pedagogy and hegemony (Jeremic 2019). This has relevance to Russia’s war against Ukraine, since Russia is an autocratic surveillance state which both curtails freedom of speech online and simultaneously uses social media as a pedagogical/propaganda tool for the maintenance of state power. Given the “hard power” dynamics at play between Russia and Ukraine, however, constructivism cannot be used as the only framework with which to dissect the war. For this reason, I use a mix of constructivism and neoclassical realism to guide my theoretical understanding of how state, non-state, and pseudo-state entities interact in both virtual and physical spaces.
In using social media to analyze state strategy and intentions, I follow in the steps of other researchers who have pioneered the field. In 2013, DiGrazia et al. used over half a million randomly selected posts to demonstrate that the number of tweets mentioning an electoral candidate correlated positively with their likelihood to gain office. Since then, such techniques have been applied to understand social media not only as a vehicle of popular opinion, but also as a vector for state communication and ambition. Hirschberger has used Israeli and Palestinian communication on social media to analyze how states in asymmetric conflicts choose to present themselves (2020). Hirschberger defined two simple narrative categories (“shaming” vs. “branding”) to empirically study and then discuss the difference in strategic communications. As social media is increasingly recognized as a potential weapon of state power, researchers such as Weissman et al. have begun to qualitatively investigate its role in “hybrid warfare,” making frequent reference to Russian and Chinese disinformation campaigns (2021). Increasingly, such analyses are carried out by media organizations and think tanks as well as the academic world.
The invasion of Ukraine, which has generated seismic changes in the international order, provides a fascinating turning point for analysis of both Russian and African strategies. In this study, I pose three research questions. The primary question is whether Russian strategic communications in Africa changed in scope, scale, or messaging since the start of the war against Ukraine. Second is whether Russian narratives have shifted over the course of the war. Finally, how have Africans responded to these Russian narratives over the course of the study period? One question is therefore marked by a temporal split (“before” and “after” the war), while two are longitudinal.
To answer these questions, I analyzed official Russian state communication aimed at Africa. The most obvious source of material was Russian embassies, which are mouthpieces of the Kremlin and also have the jurisdiction to gear their rhetoric towards African audiences. To gather a large quantity of data, I chose four embassies from across Africa for the data analysis and then logged each of their public Twitter posts into one of nine categories, which allowed me to discern which narratives predominated. Although studies such as this are often done with the aid of artificial intelligence systems that can aggregate millions of data points, I used a mixed quantitative/qualitative approach based on a smaller data set (over 1,700 Tweets from the 4 embassies). This allowed for greater accuracy and gave me a deeper familiarity with Russian communications than if I had employed the use of an AI system. To target the data set towards a sample deemed to be representative of Russian propaganda in Africa, I carefully considered a range of factors when picking the four embassies examined in this study.
The Russian embassy in South Africa was a prime candidate due to its membership in BRICS, regional importance, and frequent content posting. However, all the embassy’s content posted prior to June 2022 has been deleted, perhaps due to discrepancies between old and new rhetoric. Other southern African embassies tended to have low or non-existent content creation. This was also generally true of embassies in Lusophone and Arab-speaking nations.
After noting these limitations, I decided upon several criteria to sift through the remaining diplomatic missions. First, the embassy had to have a significant amount of content posted on its account from January 15 to December 31, 2022. Second, this content had to be primarily in English or French, which minimized the need for translation software (Google Translate had to be used for Russian and African languages). Avoiding embassies that posted mostly in Russian also ensured that the content was geared toward an African or international audience, rather than merely Russian expats. Third, the content had to be meaningful and involve more than re-tweeting posts from the MFA. Finally, care was taken to choose embassies that were spaced across Africa. Based on these criteria, Tanzania, the Republic of the Congo, Ghana, and Ethiopia were chosen as the target countries. I chose to use them as a representative sample of the broader continent due to their ethnic, linguistic, and geographic spread (as well as the unsuitability of other candidates).
Posts from each embassy were logged in an Excel sheet, with notation made for the date as well as the narrative category into which the post fell. All Russian embassy accounts can be publicly accessed on Twitter (links are provided in Annex A of this study). However, it is important to note that some re-tweets of posts by Russia Today (RT) and other sites banned by Canada, the EU, and the United States may not be available in some countries without the use of a VPN. Additionally, some embassies have begun to scrub their accounts, which leaves some holes in the chronology which are not totally filled by the Wayback Machine or screenshots.
As this study will show, Russian disinformation and strategic communications campaigns in Africa began to peak shortly before the invasion of Ukraine. In hindsight, many of Putin’s aspirations to invade Ukraine and swing opinion in Africa should have been evident based on the rhetoric and activity of his disinformation and communication webs in the leadup to the war. However, Ukrainian resistance, international pressure, and African pragmatism have all confounded Russia’s strategic communications since the inception of the war and prevented it from wooing most Africans. Nevertheless, the Kremlin has likely met at least some of its short-term goals, such as dividing a significant portion of African populations over the subject of the war against Ukraine.
Beginning the Study: Identifying Narratives
I began my primary research with an initial examination of the content (including plain-text tweets, images, videos, links to news articles, etc.) created or re-tweeted by the chosen four embassies. My goal during this initial examination was to identify the predominant Russian narratives within the corpus of material. After some time, I settled upon 10 key narratives.
When content was uploaded on embassy accounts in numerous languages but separate posts, each post was counted individually. The reasoning behind this decision is that choosing to translate one post into a range of languages (for instance, English, Russian, and Kiswahili) demonstrates a level of care on the part of Russian embassy staffers that may not be afforded to other posts. It was therefore deemed to be worthwhile to allow those posts to punch “above their weight” for the purpose of divining the strategy and thought of Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
When multiple narratives existed, the primary or unifying narrative in the post was chosen for the data analysis. If no primary narrative existed, the post was sorted into the “miscellaneous” category. A definition and rationale for each narrative is given below. For detailed examples of tweets in each category (with links provided), see Annex A at the end of this article.
Alleged Western Neocolonialism (or Russian Exceptionalism)
This category was chosen because of its current significance to the Russian Federation, as well as its historical weight in the strategic communication of the USSR. Although relatively rare, this narrative was deemed to be significant because of its regional nature. Not all posts that fell into this category included the word “neocolonial,” but they all associated the West with domination and/or painted Russia as an exceptional European nation that never participated in the carnage of colonialism or the slave trade.
Fact about Russian-African History, Cultural Exchange, or Cooperation
This category either emphasized the warm and friendly relations between Russia and African nations, or the role of Russia or the USSR in African history. Examples include photos of Russian students taking part in Russian-language “marathons,” photos of Ambassadors discussing bilateral ties, or posts concerning Africa Day or the independence of an African nation. When a Russian embassy re-posted a friendly statement or article from an African intellectual regarding the war in Ukraine, such posts were also put under this category.
Fact about Russian History or Culture
This narrative included information on Russian holidays, frequent posts about the “Great Patriotic War” (World War II), and information regarding Russian history (such as posts about Catherine the Great or Peter the Great). Posts in this category tended to emphasize the unique (i.e., non-European or pseudo-European) and ancient aspects of Russian society. When a post emphasized the history between Russia and Ukraine/Crimea, it was generally put into the category below.
Coverage/Propaganda Concerning the War in Ukraine
This category was relatively broad and very common. It included information on the status of Luhansk and Donetsk, coverage of Ukrainian “war crimes,” footage of Russian aid shipments to war-torn areas, updates on negotiations with Ukraine, information regarding motions at the UN concerning Ukraine, and high-profile updates on the war or “crisis.” Posts that were sorted into this category were geared toward creating a specific narrative about Russia’s relationship with Ukraine, often by painting Russia as the victim or the paternal caretaker, and Ukraine as the terrorist or miscreant child.
Attacking Western Involvement in the Ukrainian Crisis/War
This category differed from the one above in that it was externally focused on attacking either NATO or the collective “West.” This could include denouncing arms sales to Ukraine, sanctions against Russia (diplomatic or economic), or Western attempts to bring Ukraine into the NATO or EU fold. Another theme was accusing the “West” of having intentions to produce or use radiological, biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Coverage or Propaganda of “Russophobia”
This category involved allegations of “Russophobia” against Russia and its people, either by Western nations or Western groups or individuals. Although posts in this category often involved mention of Ukraine, the purpose was not mainly to inform or influence opinions regarding the Russo-Ukrainian War, but rather to situate contemporary issues within a broader perceived crisis of Western hatred, misunderstanding, and xenophobia toward Russians.
Miscellaneous Attacks Against the West
Posts that fell into this category were general attacks against Western countries or civil society that did not fall into the “Russophobia,” “Neocolonialism,” or “Western Involvement in Ukraine” categories. Examples include Russian statements on the potential accession of Finland and Sweden into NATO, assertions of Russian resistance against perceived Western encroachment, or coverage of human rights abuses within Western nations. Another common theme was “whataboutism” that pointed to previous NATO or American-led wars and sought to justify the war in Ukraine through ad hominem attacks.
Food Insecurity
Although posts in this category were linked to disparaging the West/Ukraine, this category was chosen specifically because of its relevance to Africa. Posts in this category sought to shift blame for the food security crisis from the shoulders of Russia to those of Ukraine, the EU, or the nebulous “West.”
Ukrainian Neo-Nazism
Posts in this category described Ukraine and Ukrainians as Nazis, fascists, or neo-Nazis, either in a contemporary or historical context. Although these posts may have contained other themes (such as the war in Ukraine), the unifying theme was always purported Nazism. The Russian state was painted as a heroic anti-Nazi bridgehead, and the posts often attempted to demonstrate continuity between WWII and the present.
Miscellaneous or Press Bulletin
Posts in this category did not fit neatly into any of the categories above. Examples include posts on bilateral relations outside of Africa (e.g., Russian-Turkish relations) or press bulletins that did not focus on Ukraine. A few of Maria Zakharova’s press bulletins in the early days of the war and again in the summer were so focused on Ukraine that they fell under “Coverage/Propaganda Concerning the War or ‘Crisis’ in Ukraine,” but for the most part they were categorized as “miscellaneous,” especially as the war entered its stalemate phase in the late spring of 2022. Another post which fell into this category was promotion of Russian Telegram platforms in March, shortly after RT and Sputnik were banned in EU nations. While Russian diplomatic accounts were never banned on Twitter, it is clear that the Russian MFA thought it was a potentially imminent outcome.
Taken together, these 10 categories allowed for an analysis of the data that revealed the focus of Russian strategic communications over the course of the study period.
Quantitative Results
In total, 1,783 posts from the 4 embassies were studied and aggregated into the data set. Of the 4 selected countries, the embassy in Ghana was by far the most prolific, posting 811 tweets over the study’s timeframe. However, many of the posts put out by the embassy in Ghana were simply retweets or reposts of statements made by the Kremlin or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In comparison, the other three embassies created proportionally more content that was tailored toward the local population (including more local-language posts). The embassy in the Republic of Congo put out 409 tweets over the course of the study. Ethiopia was the next largest, with 320 tweets (roughly 1 per day). Tanzania was the smallest, with only 243 posts, but the embassy in Tanzania also created a significant amount of content in Kiswahili and worked the hardest to establish online rapport with the local population.
Content created by the Russian embassies was prone to spurts of massive posting followed by long periods of quiet. There were likely a variety of human and political factors behind this. First, holidays and work schedules obviously impacted when and how frequently embassy staffers would post. More importantly, however, political factors impacted the nature and frequency of tweets. Although Russian propaganda and strategic communications was initially proactive—putting the West on the defensive and blaming NATO for the Ukraine crisis/war—the Russian state became more reactive as the war turned against it and international condemnation mounted. Events such as UN Security Council meetings also prompted more heavy posting, as did auspicious dates such as Peter the Great’s birthday. Even when the number of daily posts from the embassies is averaged, the frequency remains highly sporadic. Nevertheless, one trend is obvious: Russian propaganda increased significantly in the lead-up to February 24 and subsequently began to taper off. This is demonstrated in the table below.
The chart above shows all posts in all categories combined together to give an idea of the total scale of Russian activity. For an idea of which narratives predominated across the course of the study, see the table below:
This can also be viewed disaggregated based on each individual embassy:
Given that four of the narrative categories used in this study were focused on Ukraine, I also chose to create a table which combined those four narratives into one. This allows for an analysis of the proportion of Russian strategic communications during the study period that were geared toward the topic of Ukraine, as opposed to other issues.
Together, these tables form the basis of the data analysis, which is given below.
Data Analysis: Making Sense of the Longitudinal Trends
As all three tables demonstrate, all the Russian embassies began to post significantly regarding the “crisis” in Ukraine in mid-January and early February. Much of this information was simply retweets of posts made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a trend which continued after the start of the full-scale invasion. As international tensions over the “crisis” mounted, Russia continued to claim that it would seek peace and that its troops stationed along Ukraine’s borders were nothing to worry about. This rhetoric continued all the way until February 24. On the day of the overt invasion of Ukraine (February 24), there was near-tangible panic in the way that the embassies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted. Instead of circulating quotes, memes, and articles on the war as they had previously done, each embassy instead simply reposted statements made by Putin, Lavrov, and Maria Zakharova. Mimicking their language, the Russian machine began to claim that the “special operation” in Ukraine was about denazifying the country and undoing the undemocratic and inhumane effects of the Maidan “coup.” The only way to protect the Russian-speaking Ukrainian population and other vulnerable sectors, the Kremlin claimed, was to invade Ukraine. Paired with this logic was the idea that Russia had been forced to invade by NATO’s “encroachment” upon Eastern Europe. While these narratives had already been present (and widely commented upon by scholars and journalists), Russia had claimed only a few days prior to February 24 that the only thing that would cause a war would be a NATO or Ukrainian “provocation.” When war was waged by Russia without an immediate and clear provocation to justify it, even Russian government officials struggled to respond.
Russian strategic communications remained somewhat steady for several weeks, although the triumphalism faded as Russia troops were forced to retreat from Kyiv and abandon many of their early objectives. By the time of the Bucha massacre in early April, embassy communications via Twitter had already fallen to a pre-war level (see the first graph). The Bucha massacre itself caused a notable slack in posting, with the Russians no doubt scrambling to find a suitable narrative. Within a few days the posting accelerated once more, with numerous posts claiming that the massacre had been a Ukrainian “provocation” or false flag operation designed to smear Russia’s image. This narrative was aided by a website called War On Fakes, which is known to defend Russia (Burley 2022).They created misleading and overtly false information regarding evidence of the massacre (including alleged open source data and satellite imagery), claiming that the massacre was staged (Burley 2022). Russian embassies seized on this narrative, reposting articles and graphics produced by War On Fakes. Although the authors of the War on Fakes website remain anonymous and its origins are impossible to definitively trace, the connection between the website and various Russian embassies demonstrates the shadowy cycle of collaboration between official and unofficial Kremlin sources (Romero, 2022). After the Bucha massacre, posting began to dip again as the war dragged on into a stalemate in the East of the country.
In May content in the category “Fact about Russian History or Culture” spiked. While it was still not the dominant narrative, it filled some of the gap created by a significant reduction in propaganda concerning the war in Ukraine. This period also coincided with Peter the Great’s birthday and the advent of Russia Day, both of which provided ample opportunity to celebrate Russia’s history. Most likely, these posts were intended to create positive impressions of Russia among African audiences despite the absence of positive news coming out of Ukraine.
By mid-summer, the Russian propaganda machine began to get its feet under it once more. Instead of confident, triumphalist narratives about liberating Ukraine, the tone became more irritated and condemnatory. The neo-Nazi narrative was used less frequently (see charts), perhaps because the goal of “denazifying” Ukraine via regime change had clearly failed. Instead, the Kremlin’s rhetoric gradually shifted toward protecting the people of Donetsk and Luhansk. Meanwhile, Russian officials continued to lash out against Western sanctions and the provision of aid to Ukraine, blaming the West for prolonging the war and preventing Russia from achieving its aims. In the summer, the Russian MFA also began to tailor its rhetoric toward Africa. The biggest tool in their kit was the issue of food insecurity, which struck a chord with some Africans. The Russians blamed the Ukrainians for mining the ports, thus preventing the export of grain. They also alleged that the Ukrainian government had refused to cooperate in negotiations and then had broken faith after the negotiations had been settled. Meanwhile, Russian embassies and the Kremlin claimed that Western sanctions and economic mismanagement were driving factors behind the growing food insecurity problem. Another common Russian argument was that instead of sending grain to hungry African nations, Ukraine prioritized sending grain to its European allies—a move which the Kremlin portrayed as a weaponization of hunger.
The food insecurity narrative was strengthened by a series of high-level meetings between Kremlin and African officials, including Sergey Lavrov’s tour of four African countries (Uganda, Ethiopia, Egypt, and the Republic of the Congo) in June. It is worth noting that two of the countries in Lavrov’s trip intersect with this study. Part of the purpose of his tour was reassuring African allies that Russia was doing everything in its power to mitigate the food crisis (Jalloh and Bushuev 2022). It was also a diplomatic maneuver aimed at asserting Russia’s role as a non-colonial power that would continue to be a steadfast friend of African nations in need of partners (Jalloh and Bushuev 2022). The Russians were “aided” in this effort by a clumsy tour conducted by Macron at the same time as Sergey Lavrov. Lavrov congratulated African nations for their neutral stance on the war, writing: “Although unprecedented by its scale, the pressure from beyond has not brought our friends to join the anti-Russian sanctions. Such an independent path deserves deep respect” (Aregahegn 2022). Macron, on the other hand, called out African states for their “hypocrisy” in not condemning the war—even though a majority of African states did vote at the UN to condemn Russia’s invasion (Taylor 2022). Over the summer, the Russian embassies began to emphasize more than ever the ties binding Africa and Russia together. Of special importance to the Russian regime was the fact that so many Africans abstained during the UN vote condemning the invasion of Ukraine.
Content began to dip again as Ukraine launched its counteroffensive in August. There were very few ways for the Kremlin to put a positive spin on such devastating battlefield losses. Instead, they continued to simply bash the West and blame Ukraine. Nevertheless, the utility of these posts was obviously limited when they still drew attention to a war that looked bad for Putin and his top generals. The annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk increased the number of posts, as it provided a “triumph” for the Russian state to celebrate and a raison d’être for the war (which could no longer be justified using the goal of regime change). The annexations added new life to Russian strategic communications, but this was also short-lived; continued Ukrainian victories, including the Crimean Bridge explosion, put a damper on Russian propaganda. One last key narrative involved Africa’s role in supporting a UN resolution condemning Nazism, which most Western nations rejected because they saw it as an attack on Ukraine rather than a genuine attempt to combat Nazism. Russia was quick to paint this as Western support of Nazism and African support of Russian denazification. Despite these sorties, however, Russian strategic communications remained somewhat lackluster in the fall and early winter. As of December 31, 2022 (the end of our data collection for the study), posting in the four embassies had still not recovered to its pre-war levels. While extending the study into 2023 and 2024 is beyond the scope of this article, it is worth noting that some embassies may be bouncing back as of the date of publishing. From February 20 to March 21, 2024 Tanzania and Ethiopia put out more content (40 and 70 posts respectively) than in the pre-war period of January 15 to February 14 (24 and 23 posts respectively).
Qualitative Analysis: Russian Strategy and African Responses
The most important takeaway from this data is the fact that the war in Ukraine was tied into the vast majority of posts produced by Russian embassies in Africa. Despite the geographical and cultural distance separating Africans from the war, the Russians clearly perceived the conflict to be of vital importance to their strategic communications with Africa. This is shown in the chart below, which combines all four narrative categories that overtly dealt with Ukraine (Alleged Ukrainian Nazism, Food Insecurity, Coverage of the War, and Attacks on Western Involvement in Ukraine).
The medium blue represents the total of these four narrative categories. As can be seen, at most points during the study’s time frame the discussion of Ukraine dwarfed all other categories, including Coverage of Russian-African Cooperation. Most posts in these categories involved “shaming” rather than “branding” (Hirschberger 2020)—that is to say, such posts attacked Ukraine or the West rather than attempting to create a positive image of Russia (the majority of “branding” posts fell under the “Coverage of Russian-African Cooperation,” “Fun Fact about Russia,” or “Miscellaneous” categories). This is noteworthy because Hirschberger has argued that in asymmetric conflicts, the more powerful state will tend to focus on “branding,” while the smaller state or actor will focus on “shaming” (2020). Hirschberger used the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an example, arguing that the Israelis tended to focus on positive image projection, whereas the Palestinians focused on shaming the Israelis (2020). This indicates that, despite Russia’s military and demographic advantages in the war, it perceives itself as the victim in a larger asymmetric conflict where it is losing.
As the data in this study demonstrates, Russian embassies in Africa were close to becoming single-issue mouthpieces that focused on the war in Ukraine and ignored or minimized other issues. Rather than ignoring or downplaying the significance of the conflict, the Russian state intentionally highlights its significance to the African region. No doubt this is due, at least in part, to the existential significance that Putin himself attaches to the war. If he loses the kinetic war against Ukraine and the proxy war against NATO, Putin risks forfeiting his status as a revisionist leader and instead becoming an isolated leader of a pariah state (Fix and Kimmage 2023).
There is historic precedence for pariah or near-pariah states exerting inordinate amounts of energy in wooing African states. Taiwan engaged in extensive “checkbook” diplomacy in a race against mainland China to be recognized as the legitimate government of “one China” (Taylor 2002). North Korea sent soldiers to numerous African nations, trained African socialists in Kim’s Juche ideology, and undertook enormous construction projects in Africa (Young 2021). Meanwhile, Israel fought the Arab League for the hearts and minds of Sub-Saharan Africa, engaging in a variety of developmental and military projects that went far beyond the norm for a mid-sized nation (Ojo 1988). When ostracized by global powers and hit with sanctions, a pariah state must look for partners that are cheaply bought and share a discontent with the international order. Thus, it should come as no surprise that Putin’s engagement with Africa is proportional to his ostracization in the West, and may therefore increase in the coming years.
Even toward the end of the study’s timeframe, Russian posts concerning Ukraine decreased in number but did not cease to portray the war as an existential issue for the Russian state. On December 29, 2022, the Russian Embassy in Ghana tweeted a paraphrase of Foreign Minister Lavrov’s words: “We are at war with the collective West led by the United States which is a nuclear power.” Interestingly, this is a misquote that makes Lavrov’s wording even more bellicose than intended (he originally told Channel One that “The collective West, which is headed by a nuclear power—the United States—is at war with us”) (Brennan 2022). Unwilling to withdraw from its gamble in Ukraine, Russia has instead chosen to continue using the issue to promote Russian hard and soft power within Africa. This has met with mixed success.
What is often overlooked in analyses of Russian-African relations is the agency of African actors and their ability to “speak back” and shape Russian policy. As was seen during this study, African policymakers and African internet users have agency. Although a lack of education concerning disinformation may be prevalent in some regions of Africa and may aid Russia in its disinformation campaigns, it is far from a given that Africans will respond positively to Russia or take its propaganda at face value. The comment sections of the Russian embassy posts were often filled with trolls and information warriors—some African and some international—who mocked Putin’s war and the Russian state. While a few anti-Russian posts were meant to be informative, most often they were irreverent and mocking. One example is the spread of the “NAFO” (North Atlantic Fellas Organization) meme, which mocks Russia’s fear of NATO by domesticating the alliance (The Economist 2022).
On the other hand, there were often Africans who commented to express support for Russia and solidarity with Putin against the perceived neocolonialism of the West. Ironically, both types of posts can be used by the Russian state to back up its propaganda claims; the anti-Russian posts are taken as proof of “Russophobia,” while the pro-Russian posts are perceived as proof of an alleged grassroots movement in the Global South that views Russia as savior and friend. It is important to note, however, that the Africans who expressed support for Putin’s regime rarely did so on ideological grounds. More frequently, the logic was that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” or “a friend in need is a friend indeed.” Of course, when Africans join in promoting Russian (dis)information, they “are not simply passive mouthpieces for larger powers” (Thomas 2022 “Central African Republic”). Some are paid to produce pro-Russian content, but others may simply be pro-Russian enthusiasts, or else may support Russia for domestic political reasons (Thomas 2022 “Central African Republic”).
It is also important to note that Africans accepted some pieces of Russian propaganda while rejecting others. As a recent study by Blankenship and Ordu has demonstrated, African tweets in support of the Russian food insecurity narrative have been dwarfed throughout the war by tweets blaming Russia and/or the Russian blockade for the food crisis (“What’s Sticking” 2022). Tweets blaming Western sanctions for the food insecurity problem peaked when Putin met with AU Chairperson Macky Sall on June 3, but were still outnumbered 3-1 by posts favoring the Ukrainian narrative (Blankenship and Ordu “What’s Sticking” 2022). On the other hand, the narrative that Ukrainians are Nazis proved far more virulent than pro-Ukrainian counterclaims or “checks” (Blankenship and Ordu “What’s Sticking,” 2022). This held true on at least a cursory level of examination in this study. It seems likely that the Nazism narrative was more successful because it had a kernel of truth—African students and immigrants in Ukraine have faced horrible (sometimes deadly) discrimination as they have tried to flee the warzone, provoking understandable outrage (Blankenship and Ordu “Narratives” 2022). The food insecurity narrative, on the other hand, has less grounding because the problem did not exist prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Unlike their constituents, African leaders often proved reticent to pick sides in the conflict or support Putin directly. To Western leaders, this hesitancy was viewed with a mixture of apprehension and disdain. Macron and Biden both chided African governments for their neutrality, creating an “if you’re not for us, you’re against us” paradigm. This approach was tone-deaf and ignored some of the very real concerns of Africans concerning neocolonialism and the history of proxy wars. On the other hand, Russian strategic communications and propaganda was extremely careful not to browbeat Africans or pressure them into acting a certain way. Instead, the Russian state chose to highlight its respect for friendship, sovereignty, and neutrality (which tied into their claims that NATO enlargement violated Russia’s good faith, sovereignty, and neutrality). This tentative approach vis-à-vis Africa may be reflective of Russia’s precarious position on the continent and lack of authority in comparison to the other four permanent members of the Security Council. However, this strategy was often received very positively by African heads of state. When Macky Sall (president of Senegal and chairperson of the African Union) met with Putin in Sochi, his language paralleled that of the Russian MFA. He began by speaking of Russia’s “tremendous role” in liberating Africa from colonialism, and said that he was in Sochi “in the name of friendship” (Kremlin 2022). Sall stated that the position of African states on the Ukraine “crisis” (not “war”) was “heterogeneous,” and that “despite heavy pressure, many countries still did not denounce Russia” (Kremlin 2022). Sall also blamed Western sanctions for the food crisis, rather than mentioning the Russian invasion. While such remarks may seem sycophantic, they are reflective of a growing symbiotic relationship between Russia and its African partners. For instance, view the following “visualization” produced by the Russian Embassy in Kenya and retweeted by the Russian Embassy in Ethiopia on June 5, 2022:
Whereas some Western commentators described the table arrangement as a sign of Putin’s mental derangement, it may have been intentional. By spatially separating himself from Macron and Scholz but sitting next to Sall, Putin is able to (literally) position himself as a tough leader who humiliates the West but welcomes African leaders as equals. From the perspective of African leaders, this is an invitation toward pragmatic cooperation. Unlike during the Cold War, however, this pragmatism is not marked by dramatic shifts in alliance or an exploitation of East-West rivalries. Rather, many African leaders have displayed a diplomatic mixture of caution and hope. As Sall’s conversation with Putin emphasizes, African leaders are often willing to work with Russia but not to stake out a position in either the pro-Western or pro-Russian camp.
This was also evident in the African-written articles that the Russian embassies in this study reposted. Only one overtly pro-Russian piece comes to mind; it was so vitriolic that it may have been sponsored directly by the Kremlin (the author describes Western leaders as full of “vapid emptiness combined with inferiority complex masked only by imbecilic garrulous snarling”) (Akomolafe 2022). In contrast, many pieces were neutral or simply anti-Western, rather than pro-Russian. One news feed featured a panel of various experts debating Russian influence in Africa, and not all of the panelists had positive things to say. Reading between the lines, it becomes evident that the Russian embassy staffers were adept at remaining flexible and using even neutral pieces in their favor (often by reposting an article with a favorable headline, even if the content was not necessarily pro-Russian).
There was also a noticeable tendency for the embassies in this study to target students through Russian-language marathons, scholarship offers, and lectures. For instance, see the following post from the Russian embassy in the Republic of the Congo:
The caption reads: “On the 20th of April 2022, Mr. @GuyMettan presented his book ‘Russia vs. the West, A Thousand Year War: Russophobia from Charlemagne up to the Ukraine Crisis’ to the students of the National Graduate School of Brazzaville.” This post is fascinating because it combines a variety of Russian narratives (Russophobia, Russian history, and Russian-African cooperation) into 1 tweet of only 33 words. Russia is known to use its universities as an extension of its soft power and often pays African students to write positive pieces about Russia (Thomas 2022, “Central African Republic”). In such a young and diasporic continent, there are strategic reasons to target youths and students. Members of the African National Congress Youth League in South Africa were among the observers in Russia’s referenda in Donetsk and Luhansk (Thomas 2022, “Election Observers”). One of these Youth League members likened the referenda to the freedom struggle in South Africa, and others have met with Putin and publicly praised the Russian war against Ukraine while attacking Western enlargement in Eastern Europe (Thomas 2022, “Election Observers”). For Russia, this represents a valuable and versatile source of soft power that reinforces its claims of solidarity with the Global South and resistance to neocolonialism.
Russia carefully pursues a two-track system of disinformation. One is official and involves Kremlin statements, state-sponsored documentaries, interviews, etc. The other is an unofficial web of disinformation networks run by Russian troll farms, paid actors and journalists writing smear pieces, shadowy government officials helping to rig elections, and a variety of other tools. Within the context of this study, this manifested itself as a tendency to avoid discussing some of the most vital aspects of Russian-African relations, especially Prigozhin and the Wagner Group. While Wagner was alluded to on a handful of occasions, it was never tied to the Russian state. Indeed, two posts by the Russian embassy in the Republic of the Congo discussed Wagner only in the context of attempting to debunk claims regarding Wagner’s presence in the country and possible ties between Russian diplomats and Wagner. This silence is telling, given the fact that Wagner and related Russian mercenary groups have already been deployed in at least 21 African countries and are widely considered to be 1 of the largest vehicles of Putin’s foreign policy aims on the continent (Katz et al. 2020; El-Badawy et al. 2022). Meanwhile, Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s name appears only once out of the 1,783 embassy posts, and then only in the context of debunking Wagner’s alleged presence in the Republic of the Congo. The events of the June 23–24 mutiny were discussed only as the actions of a group of mutineers; Prigozhin was not named by the embassies during the mutiny, nor upon the day of his death exactly two months later.
Lenin once argued that the state “must be prepared to […] resort to all sorts of cunning, schemes, and stratagems to employ illegal methods, to evade and conceal the truth” (DeBenedictis 2022). The Kremlin has inherited this mentality (DeBenedictis 2022). In congruence with this ideology, the USSR utilized five pillars of political warfare against its opponents: propaganda (sponsored directly by the state), disinformation (which was not always officially tied to the state), collaborators within foreign political parties and foreign governments, front organizations (which were covertly funded by the USSR), and agents of influence (who supported the Soviet Union’s narratives either wittingly or unwittingly) (DeBenedictis 2022).
The Global Engagement Center, a branch of the U.S. Department of State, has identified five “pillars of Russian disinformation” which correlate closely to the Soviet methods of “political warfare” and help explain the role of shadow state actors such as Wagner and Prigozhin in Africa. While not an impartial source, the GEC’s analysis provides a helpful mental tool, since they visualize Russia’s disinformation toolkit as a sliding scale from “visible” to “denied.” The first pillar is Official Government Communications, such as embassy or Kremlin communications. The second pillar is State-Funded Global Messaging, such as Russia Today (RT) or Sputnik. Both of these are visible, and represent the risks that Russia is willing to take as well as the (dis)information that it spreads. The gray category is “Cultivation of Proxy Sources,” which involves amplifying pro-Russian voices, supporting local-language media, and funding pseudo-independent think tanks and journals in the West and elsewhere. The fourth pillar involves the “Weaponization of Social Media,” in which the Russian state seeks to influence domestic conversations, worsen civil unrest, and hijack public trust of institutions. The last pillar, “Cyber-Enabled Disinformation,” involves more malicious activities such as forgeries, site-cloning, doxing, site capture, and hijacking official platforms or media. The Russian embassies in this study operated comfortably in the first two categories (state narratives and state-controlled media), used the third (proxy sources) semi-frequently, and had few visible ties to weaponization of social media or cyber-enabled disinformation.
While it is beneficial for the Russian state to have its informal networks to operate independently of the official regime, it is also common for the illicit aspects of Russian activity to become commonly acknowledged once certain thresholds have been passed. For instance, Putin openly discussed the involvement of Russia in Crimea after initially denying that Russian soldiers had ever stepped foot on the peninsula (Nimmo 2015).
After Prigozhin’s June 6, 2023 mutiny attempt, Wagner forces in Africa were taken under the command of Russian General Andrei Averyanov, former head of Unit 29155 for Russia’s military intelligence branch, the GRU (Cordall 2024). While the GRU (and specifically Unit 29155) has a long history of orchestrating covert operations and assassinations outside of official state conduct or approval (Cordall 2024), this new relationship may induce more direct links between Wagner and the Russian state. If so, this may change Putin’s overt-covert and official-unofficial calculus. Rather than using Wagner as an ostensibly non-state proxy force, he may choose to make them a more overt wing of his foreign and military policy–a change that is seemingly represented by Wagner’s recent rebranding as the “Expeditionary Corp” (Cordall 2024). However, recent embarrassments, such as the apparent capture of Wagner mercenaries by Ukrainian special forces in Sudan, are no doubt demonstrating to Putin’s inner circle that the utility of proxy forces is limited (The Economist 2024).
Another factor to consider is the balancing of state actors that Putin uses to maintain his own power, such as the pre-coup use of Wagner as a counterweight against the traditional armed forces (Sauer and Roth 2022). The disruption of this balance gives Putin more influence over military command and control, but also makes him less agile. Future Russian acknowledgement of previously illicit networks or activities may depend in large part on domestic concerns. Regardless of the outcome, the murky post-truth nature of the propaganda regime gives the Kremlin incredible flexibility in terms of which facts it recognizes, which (dis)information it promotes, and which actors it officially or unofficially partners with.
Discussion
It is worth noting that, while most of the findings of this study seem to hold up to scrutiny in 2023 and 2024, the environment continues to shift and this study is limited to the events of 2022. As previously noted, the Wagner uprising and its subsequent absorption into the Russian army and the GRU may have an impact on future Russian communication on the continent. Nevertheless, this study contributes to the existing literature on Russian foreign relations by providing a tailored analysis of Russian embassies in Africa and the way that they communicated Russian strategic ambitions and actions to African populations shortly before and after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While many analysts have begun to look at the covert side of Russian influence—cyberwarfare, troll farms, mercenaries—this study is unique in that it examines the interaction between licit and illicit channels of communication. Such information is crucial to understanding the way that the Kremlin perceives itself and wishes to be perceived. The rise in propaganda that I noted prior to the start of the war also has implications for future researchers and peacemakers. Further research is needed to determine whether other wars could be predicted based on social media patterns.
The invasion of Ukraine did not signal a drastic shift in the Kremlin’s strategy, but rather a Zeitenwende in the way that the West perceived Russia. Similarly, Russia’s strategic communications in Africa did not change in any dramatic way with the invasion of Ukraine. Rather, the invasion and the increase in stakes that it created provided an incentive for the scale and intensity of the rhetoric to be scaled up. As demonstrated in the study, African populations and African leaders met this strategy with mixed responses throughout 2022. While some Africans welcome Russia, the majority still do not have a high regard for Putin or the Kremlin. Although the tide may be slowly turning toward a pro-Russian attitude, the tactics and rhetoric of Russian embassies in Africa demonstrate that the nation is still playing the role of disruptor and revisionist rather than equal competitor vis-à-vis the West. Russian strategic communication in Africa has helped achieve the short-term goals of gaining some support at the U.N. and diverting at least a portion of African sentiment toward Russia, but it has not led to the staunch and widespread pro-Russian outcome that some Western analysts fear.
Conclusion
Russian history is rife with wars, revolutions, and ideological shifts. Despite this legacy, however, there remains a great deal of continuity. In 1963, Nikita Kruschev told Fidel Castro:
"You’d think I could change anything in this country. Like hell I can. No matter what changes I propose and carry out, everything stays the same. Russia is like a tub full of dough, you put your hand down in it, down to the bottom, and think you’re master of the situation. When you first pull out your hand, a little hole remains, but then, before your very eyes, the dough expands into a spongy, puffy mass. That’s what Russia is like" (Frye 2021, quoted in Graham and Haberman 2021).
While Putin’s role as the driver of Russian policy is important, he is also the product of both Russian and Soviet history and aspirations. Equally important is the role of state bureaucracy—such as the invisible embassy staff behind the data in this study—which plays a vital role in the daily operations of the regime. Even if Putin is deposed and/or the war in Ukraine comes to an end, it is unlikely that the subsequent status quo in Russia will be either pro-West or pro-democracy (Fix and Kimmage 2023). For this reason, Russian strategic communication in Africa is also unlikely to change drastically in the coming years. Instead, it is far more likely that Russian relations with Africa will still be defined by the 3 main conclusions reached by Lenin’s policy analysts in the early 20th Century: the desire to weaponize Africa against the West, the understanding that Africa remains strategically important, and the belief that Russia and Africa are both marginalized by the policies and prejudice of the West (Charles 1980). While the narratives and tactics that Russia employs may shift, the geopolitical impetus behind them will likely remain stable. Meanwhile, African leaders will continue to recognize their vulnerable position in the international system and choose allies based on pragmatism and need, rather than pure ideology or fixed international alliances.
*This article was edited by Morgan Lonergan (Princeton University) and Alyssa Mercado (Texas A&M University).
About the Author
Chris Babcock is an academic who loves puzzling over strategy, ethics, and the future of international relations and warfare. When he’s not tracking Russian state Twitter accounts, you can find him writing novels, playing guitar, or kickboxing.
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Image banner sources:
All three images are used under a Creative Commons license with attribution required.
The image of Vladimir Putin is accessed through the Kremlin website:
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68672
The image of Volodymyr Zelenskyy is accessed through his Flickr channel:
https://flickr.com/photos/president_of_ukraine/52502054830/in/photostream/
The image of Macky Sall is accessed through the MONUSCO Flickr channel:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/monusco/8102304723/
The images were put together using Canva.
Annex A
In order to make this study reproducible and my methodology transparent, I have created a table below with a representative sample of embassy posts and the corresponding narrative into which they were grouped. A brief rationale is given for why each post was put into any given category. Three examples are given for each narrative. Posts mentioned or excerpted in the study are bolded in the Annex. It is worth noting that Ghana and Ethiopia both seem to have scrubbed their Twitter/X accounts since the original period of data collection. The Twitter account of the Russian embassy in Ghana as of April 6, 2024 has deleted all posts prior to August 29, 2022. The account in Ethiopia has deleted all posts prior to March 10, 2022. All links below have been saved and/or accessed through the Wayback Machine to ensure longevity should the Russian embassies further scrub their accounts.
(Note: “O.P.” stands for “Original Post,” and marks a discrepancy between the date that the original tweet was created and the date that it was retweeted by the embassy in question.)
Alleged Western Neocolonialism (or Russian Exceptionalism)
| |||
Hyperlink | Date | Embassy Location | Rationale |
25/12/22 (Christmas Day) | Tanzania | This post attacks Western “non-market regulation” of the oil and gas market as a colonial tactic. | |
12/02/22 | Ghana | This post celebrates the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, remembering the roughly 17 million Africans who were enslaved. It also claims that Russia never participated in the slave trade. | |
11/09/22 | Ghana | This post paints Western exportation of democracy and liberal values as neo-colonial tools meant to exploit the Global South. | |
Fact About Russian-African History, Cultural Exchange, or Cooperation
| |||
Hyperlink | Date | Embassy Location | Rationale |
https://twitter.com/Russie_au_Congo/status/1599782569930764289
| 12/05/22 | Rep. Congo | This post shows African students in “solidarity” with Russia over the war in Ukraine. |
https://web.archive.org/web/20221122202228/https://twitter.com/rusembethiopia | 10/13/22 | Ethiopia | This link shares an RT interview with Oleg Ozerov (Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum) after he gave a panel talk on Russian-African Sustainable Energy Development at Russian Energy Week 2022. |
https://twitter.com/Russie_au_Congo/status/1517156603815862274 | 04/21/22 | Rep. Congo | This post shows the presentation of a book by Guy Mettan to the National Graduate School in Brazzaville. The focus of the post is highlighting Russian-African engagement and, more tacitly, African support for the “Russophobia” narrative. |
Fact About Russian History or Culture
| |||
Hyperlink | Date | Embassy Location | Rationale |
06/22/22 | Tanzania | This post commemorates the Nazi invasion of Russia and the lives lost during WWII. | |
06/12/22 | Tanzania | This post celebrates Russia Day. | |
10/16/22 | Ghana | This post describes the “Gold Star” medal awarded to Russian heroes of the “Great Patriotic War” (WWII). Note the focus on WWII as a defining struggle against fascism. | |
Coverage/Propaganda Concerning the War in Ukraine
| |||
Hyperlink | Date | Embassy Location | Rationale |
O.P.: 12/24/22 (Christmas Eve)
Retweet: 12/15/22 (Christmas Day) | Tanzania | The main focus of the post is defending Russia’s “special military operation” and claiming that it is necessary to protect Russians.
Note that the focus on the war continues even on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (although of course, Russia follows the Orthodox Christmas calendar). | |
https://web.archive.org/web/20220304191915/https://twitter.com/rusembethiopia | 02/27/22 | Ethiopia | This post claims that the violence in Ukraine started before the Russian invasion and has its roots in the pro-Western Euromaidan color revolution. |
04/05/22 | Tanzania | This post shares disinformation from the War On Fakes website claiming that the Bucha massacre is a "global lie." | |
Attacking Western Involvement in Ukrainian Crisis/War
| |||
Hyperlink | Date | Embassy Location | Rationale |
12/01/22 | Rep. Congo | This post concisely blames the continuation of the war in Ukraine on the Western powers, painting Kyiv as their vassal. | |
11/27/22 | Ghana | This post perpetuates the idea of secret US “biolabs” in Ukraine, purportedly used to produce biological weapons of mass destruction. | |
https://web.archive.org/web/20221122202228/https://twitter.com/rusembethiopia | 11/26/22 | Ethiopia | This post claims that the “rules” of the international world order are written by the West, and that American National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby tacitly admitted to the US being involved in the war in Ukraine. |
Coverage/Propaganda concerning “Russophobia”
| |||
Hyperlink | Date | Embassy Location | Rationale |
https://twitter.com/Russie_au_Congo/status/1499755456406896644 | 03/04/22 | Rep. Congo | This post bemoans “l’hystérie sans limite antirusse” (limitless anti-Russian hysteria) in Europe. The context is the EU’s banning of RT and Sputnik. |
https://web.archive.org/web/20220410215448/https://twitter.com/rusembethiopia | 04/07/22 | Ethiopia | This post attacks commercial boycotts of Russia by companies such as Chanel. The embassy account points out that Chanel herself had Nazi ties. |
09/21/22 | Ghana | This post quotes Putin as saying that the goal of Western nations is to undermine and destroy Russia, just as they did to the Soviet Union. | |
Miscellaneous Attack Against the West
| |||
Hyperlink | Date | Embassy Location | Rationale |
12/26/22 | Tanzania | This post criticizes American unipolarity. | |
O.P.: 12/06/22 Retweet: 12/07/22 | Tanzania | This post criticizes perceived American hegemonic control over NATO and the EU. | |
12/04/22 | Ghana | This post attacks Western nuclear messaging, claiming that the US “hyped” the Russian nuclear threat and then shifted blame for the crisis. | |
Food Insecurity
| |||
Hyperlink | Date | Embassy Location | Rationale |
05/18/22 | Tanzania | This post blames Western sanctions for food insecurity, and argues that Russia is continuing to “fulfill obligations” in that regard. | |
https://twitter.com/RussianEmbassyC/status/1586776926294839297 | 10/30/22 | Ghana | This post claims that Ukraine fired on Russian ships from the “grain corridor” with the help of Canada and Britain. The food insecurity problem is blamed on Ukraine, Britain, and Canada. |
05/11/22 | Tanzania | This post blames the mining of Ukrainian port cities for the global food insecurity crisis. | |
Ukrainian Neo-Nazism
| |||
Hyperlink | Date | Embassy Location | Rationale |
https://web.archive.org/web/20221122202228/https://twitter.com/rusembethiopia | 11/09/22 | Ethiopia | This post attempts to contrast the UNGA’s vote against the glorification of Nazism with the presence of Nazism in Ukraine, particularly the Azov Regiment. |
10/19/22 | Ghana | This post claims that the Ukrainians are intentionally shelling civilians in Donbass and equates the Kyiv government with Nazism. | |
https://web.archive.org/web/20220304191915/https://twitter.com/rusembethiopia | 03/03/22 | Ethiopia | This post claims that after 2014, Ukraine began to “glorify” Nazism. It also alludes to the association of Ukrainian partisans with German Nazis during WWII. |
Miscellaneous or Press Bulletin
| |||
Hyperlink | Date | Embassy Location | Rationale |
12/31/22 | Ghana | This post is a celebratory New Year’s message that has nothing to do directly with geopolitics. | |
https://twitter.com/Russie_au_Congo/status/1599735477149782016 | 12/05/22 | Rep. Congo | This is a Press Bulletin which covers a variety of geopolitical issues, none of which predominate. |
09/02/22 | Rep. Congo | Although not particularly representative of the narrative category, this post was unique because it refutes the existence of Wagner in the Republic of the Congo. | |
https://twitter.com/Russie_au_Congo/status/1604385747649277953 | 12/18/22 | Rep. Congo | This post shares Yevgeny Prigozhin’s response to Reuters questions regarding the presence of Wagner in Burkina Faso. |