That is the wildest thing about this. Russia is in Africa creating havoc and you still have the normal idiots running interference for them. Even i'f you dont care about the vaccine misinformation or even the interference in politics across Europe and the US, you would think that shit like this would be cause for alarm.
Civilian killings soar as Russian mercenaries join fight in West Africa
Documents, imagery and witness accounts point to a heightened Russian presence in Mali
I actually stumbled upon this and it is a good read on the Russian approach for Africa:
Pro-Russia sentiments growing in Africa
Like other countries that use strategic narratives to advance state interests, attempting to influence through the media is not a new phenomenon for Russia. The Soviet Union practised
“dezinformatsiya” for years. But digital technologies and social media are new, increasing the reach and impact of Russian influence campaigns. The ability of the Kremlin to convey messages directly to foreign publics has become easier and cheaper than ever.
Interestingly, much of the content being shared on social media by Russian networks in Africa is not “fake news” but is in most cases hyper-partisan and polarising.
For example, when supporters of the August 2020 coup in Mali spilled into the streets to celebrate, inexplicably some were carrying Russian flags and photos of Putin. At the time Russia did not have any strong bilateral, cultural, or historical ties with the country. But the groundwork for pro-Russian sentiment was laid a year earlier when social media sites started blaming France for Mali’s militant Islamist insurgency in the north.
Since the August coup, several more protests have sprung up in parts of Mali, all denouncing France’s presence in the country and, in some cases, calling for further cooperation with Russia. In February 2022, France
officially removed its forces from the country.
Similar scenes were witnessed after Burkina Faso’s January 2022 coup, with some supporters calling for their country to switch alliances from France to Russia. A day after the coup, Alexander Ivanov, who has been linked to the private military company Wagner in the Central African Republic (CAR), offered training to the Burkinabe military. Wagner mercenaries have been employed in the CAR since at least 2017. Their presence has been framed as helpful despite widespread allegations of human rights abuses levelled against them.
With tech companies like Meta and Twitter now wise to online influence campaigns, Russia has sought to outsource the creation of content to local actors in Africa. This gives the influence campaigns more cultural context while also making it difficult for ordinary citizens to identify inauthentic accounts.
Russian information operations are the first crucial step in many of its pursuits. In Ukraine, it is about painting Kyiv as the aggressor, Moscow the liberator. In Africa, it is to convey that Russia’s presence on the continent is larger than it really is.
www.dailymaverick.co.za
It hits on some of the chaos they are sowing in Africa...
France says it has evidence Russia tried to frame it with mass graves in Mali
The latest Speed Read,/speed-reads,,speed-reads, breaking news, comment, reviews and features from the experts at The Week
theweek.com
Massacres, Executions, and Falsified Graves: The Wagner Group’s Mounting Humanitarian Cost in Mali
The Wagner Group is complicit in violence against civilians in Mali, the latest in a long pattern of abuses and war crimes. The international community needs to redouble its efforts to protect civilians in Mali and hold the Wagner Group accountable.
www.csis.org
And also better explains stories like this which are happening all over Africa and India etc.
He’s pro-Russian, anti-Zelensky and rallying for Putin in West Africa
Sawadogo, a 30-year-old seller of children’s toys, said he became a fan of Vladimir Putin last year after watching videos about Russian commandos on Facebook. Interest swelled to passion when extremists overran his childhood village and torched the primary school where his brother taught. Messages flooding his social media feeds blamed France and the West for fueling
the bloodshed — while framing Putin as a hero poised to help.
“Thank you, Putin,” read one post on his screen. “You are the Jesus of modern times.”
www.bbc.com
