Disinformation is a key part of the hybrid warfare that Russia unleashed in Africa in a growing effort to expand its influence and gain control over the continent's natural resources, the Africa Defense Forum (ADF) Magazine wrote in a November issue.
The Russian disinformation operations "pop up repressive regimes and harm civilians," the ADF said. Russia connected to 40% of all disinformation campaigns across the African continent, AFD reported, describing these operations as "cognitive warfare" run by the Russian defense ministry.
Russia identifies and inflames local grievances to use them to its advantage, the ADF said. The Kremlin exploits Africa's history of colonialism to whitewash Russia's own account of civilian massacres, human rights violations and other atrocities committed in Africa.
In alignment with that narrative, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed his country has never done anything inhumane on the African continent.
Addressing the audience at the Kremlin's public relations event, the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi on November 7, Putin said:
"In the history of our relations with the African continent, there has never been any shadow - never; we have never exploited African peoples, nor been engaged in anything inhumane on the African continent."
That is false.
Russia has a dark history of human rights abuses in Africa dating back to the 18th century.
In the present day, multiple investigations by independent rights groups, journalists, think tanks, the United Nations commissions, the U.S. State Department and the European Union accuse Russian state-backed Wagner military group (now African Corps) of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Africa.
The United Nations investigation documented crimes including killing and summary execution of innocent civilians, rape of women and children, torture, force disappearances, pillaging and looting of homes.
In just one incident in Mali, the Russian Wagner forces backed by Malian troops killed upwards of 500 people in Moura village, the U.N. Human rights experts reported in May 2023.
Eyewitnesses recounted to the U.N. investigators how, on March 27, 2022, "a military helicopter flew over the village, opening fire on people, while four other helicopters landed, and troops disembarked. The soldiers corralled people into the center of the village, shooting randomly at those trying to escape."
The Malian authorities claimed it was "an anti-terrorist military operation" against Katiba Macina, an al-Qaida-affiliated group. The surviving villagers described it as a mass murder and atrocity scene, which continued for five days. "58 women, including young girls, were raped or subjected to other forms of sexual violence" by the Wagner forces and the Malian troops, the survivors told the U.N. experts.
The U.S. State Department report in February 2023 documented atrocities committed by Russia in Chad, Libya, Mali, Sudan and Central Africa Republic, CAR.
"The Kremlin-backed Wagner Group forces have razed entire villages and murdered civilians in the Central African Republic [CAR] to advance their economic interests in the mining sector, participated in the unlawful execution of people in Mali, raided artisanal gold mines in Sudan, and undermined democratic institutions in every country where they have worked."
An investigative report by The Blood Gold Report, an initiative by the Washington-based Consumer Choice Center and its anti-corruption arm 21Democracy revealed the Wagner Group laundered more than $2.5 billion for the Kremlin from trade in African gold since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In February, the U.K.-based Royal United Services Institute said Russia's military intelligence service was offering the African unstable governments a "regime survival package" that provides military and diplomatic support in exchange for access to natural resources.
The Kremlin also has recruited hundreds of 18- to 22-year-old African women from Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria to come to Russia on a false promise of a good job and high wages. Once in Russia, the women are forced to work long hours under constant surveillance for a much lower salary than promised assembling Iranian drones for Russia's war in Ukraine, The Associated Press reported.
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Many African men that have fallen for the Russian promise of a good job end up on the front lines, fighting against Ukraine.
Black foreigners, as well as Russians of African ancestry in Russia, face constant harassment living in an atmosphere of "out of control violent racism," the British rights watchdog Amnesty International reported.
As for Putin's reference to history: Russia is not without a spectacle of slavery or colonization.
As recently as the 20th century, an amusement park known as Somali village in Luna Park in St. Petersburg, Russia, featured enslaved Africans paraded in cages resembling human zoos.
Further back in history, Russia tried to colonize various parts of Africa but was defeated. In 1889, it claimed Sagallo village, modern-day Djibouti, but it lost its bid to France.
In 1885, Russia was among the countries scrambling for the Red Sea, though it was defeated by Britain in the battle for Sudan and Ethiopia.
