Since 1950, Africa has experienced 220 attempted coups d’état, according to Vox Ukraine researchers. This was a standard strategy for establishing pro-Soviet power in a country. With the fall of the USSR, Russian interference in African life has decreased, and now Russia is trying to regain control over the continent. How it does it and what goals it pursues were discussed by the participants of an expert discussion “Russia’s expansion in Africa: hybrid methods and strategic goals of the Kremlin.”
The event was held as part of a press tour of journalists from African countries. The Ukraine Crisis Media Center invited Saikou Jammeh, Gambia (Journalists for Justice (JFJ)), Ougo Jackson Biko, Kenya (Nation/bikozulu.com), Orrin Singh, South Africa (Eyewitness News) Ibekwe Nicholas Leonard, Nigeria (Premium Times of Nigeria) to join the discussion. Together with Ukrainian experts, they analyzed Russia’s informational and humanitarian expansion in Africa, risks for regional security and challenges in the context of expanding Ukrainian economic and diplomatic presence on the continent.
Volodymyr Solovyan, Ph.D., Head of the UCMC Hybrid Warfare Analytical Group, spoke about Russia’s main priorities for expansion in Africa.
He noted that Russia does not have enough economic leverage to influence politics in African countries. Therefore it tries to compensate for this by promoting its interests in the military-technical sphere and supplying weapons to conflict zones.
Another dimension is food and energy security.
“It is impossible to underestimate the importance of the grain corridor for ensuring reliable and stable supply of food products, including to African countries. In this context, it is also very important to note that Russia is trying to be a trailblazer when it comes to nuclear energy. Currently, the Russian company Rosatom has signed certain agreements with at least 20 African countries, and this will increase the dependence of African countries on Russian technologies in the future,” the expert predicted.
Volodymyr Solovyan emphasized that Russia is actually very interested in gaining access to diamond deposits.
“Given that these companies are controlled by Russian elites, this is a great opportunity for them to create gray areas and accumulate funds for war. Besides, this can involve corruption, because Russian elites usually build their fortunes on it,” added the Head of the UCMC Hybrid Warfare Analytical Group.
Marta Oliynyk-Dyomochko, Candidate of Political Sciences, Africanist researcher, representative of the Global Ukraine Foundation, described the main techniques of the Russian Federation’s intervention in political processes in African countries.
“Russia’s long-term goal is to shape such an agenda of international relations that would allow it to become a powerful voice and a powerful force that the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America would follow. But for the country that actually does not recognize the norms and order of international relations and pursues the position-of-strength policy, bribery of political elites, interference in election processes, manipulation of public opinion, and propaganda are absolutely normal foreign-policy tools. Russia has done all this before in Ukraine, and therefore this issue is also sensitive for us, we feel it, and we understand what it is about,” she said.
Russia in African countries receives resources, contacts, political loyalty, and at some points even such a phenomenon as State Capture occurs, when the state is actually captured not by force, but by so-called soft power.
“We can distinguish three areas of Russia’s intervention in the political life of African countries. The first is an international platform. The second is its direct interference in the elections, and the third is destabilizing the situation in the country through the media and public organizations. This is done in order to create a false request from society, which will be beneficial to Moscow,” the expert explained.
And how do people in Africa see the advancement of Russian interests on the continent? According to Nicholas Leonard, at the end of the Cold War, the Russians lost their influence.
“It’s important to understand that the Soviet Union was a very influential entity in Africa during the Cold War. Instead, the West became a powerful partner for many African countries. However, over the years, they began to take this partnership for granted and thus they themselves gave Russia the opportunity to scale up its activities. As soon as discontent with France began to grow in Africa, the anti-French narrative about the despotism of the government immediately intensified. In certain regions, people began to believe that France is exploiting the African continent,” the guest noted.
He clarified that what they have to deal with is not exactly Fake News. There is an aspect of disinformation, and Russia is very good at using it to incite hatred. At the same time, they are not necessarily lying. They simply distort the real facts, and certain elements of the truth are shown in a different way.
“It’s important to understand that the Russians will not stop. They have both a military and an educational presence. Even the Russian language is being promoted in different parts of Africa. There are scholarships. They have brought African journalists to Russia to cover what is happening. This is their approach, when it is clear what the Russians need to do. And what is the West doing about it? I can’t understand at the moment,” Nicholas Leonard admitted.
Orrin Singh touched on the issue of political influence.
“As for BRICS, people in South Africa are not very positive about it. Those I spoke to do not see this as something serious for the region. They see it more as a political progress,” the journalist said.
Having arrived in Ukraine, the press tour participants sought to understand the so-called Crimean issue. During the discussion, Mykhailo Samus, director of the New Geopolitics Research Network helped them in this.
“There is no Crimean nation or Crimean people,” he emphasized.
Under the Soviet Union, there was a specific policy of moving people from Russia to other territories. Thus, in 1944, during World War II, the USSR started to deport Crimean Tatars – the indigenous population of Crimea who had lived there for centuries, to Asia – to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Many were killed. Only in 1994, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Crimean Tatars received the right to return to Crimea as their homeland.
Before that, since 1944, Moscow resettled Russians to the liberated territories instead of Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians, many of whom were deported to Siberia and other regions.
“In 1991, when we gained independence, Crimea was again Ukrainian. We faced an artificial change in the composition of the population. Earlier, the predominant population of Crimea was Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, whereas now there are a lot of Russians. When I came to Crimea before 2014, I did not feel that I was Ukrainian. There was no feeling that I was in Ukraine. Everything or almost everything was in Russian. Therefore, when in Russia they say that Russians and the Russian language were oppressed in Crimea, this is a manipulative narrative,” Mykhailo Samus said.
He recalled that at that time the President of Ukraine Kuchma publicly said that it was in Ukraine’s interests in general for Russia to invest in Crimea
“Kyiv thought that in this way the Russians would not interfere and would not create preconditions for war, but as you can see, this strategy did not lead to anything,” the Ukrainian expert concluded.
The press tour takes is part of the Unfold Ukraine to Global South project implemented by UCMC in cooperation and coordination with the Open Society Foundation and funded by the International Renaissance Foundation.