Moscow relies on well-known Africans to spread Russian misinformation and propaganda across the continent.

From military figures to politicians, and from media executives to social media influencers, what the following people all have in common is that, whether ideologues or opportunists, they defend the interests of Russia, and the Kremlin in particular, across the African continent.

On the heels of the Russia-Africa summit, which concluded on the evening of July 28 in St. Petersburg, here is an overview of some of the well-known Africans upon whom Moscow relies to consolidate its influence.

Having led demonstrations in the capital city of Bamako in 2020 calling for the ousting of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (2013-2020), under whom he had previously served as a minister, Choguel Maïga had long been a minor player in Malian politics.

Known for his admiration for the military and dictatorial regime of Moussa Traoré (1968-1991), from whose political lineage he has continued to claim descent, he was able to rise to higher office thanks to the Malian putschists’ second coup d’état in May 2021. The military then appointed him prime minister and began making use of his pro-Russian and anti-French views.

A graduate of Moscow Technical University of Telecommunications, Maïga was instrumental in mobilizing Bamako against the French presence. His speeches, especially one he delivered at the UN in September 2021, in which he accused France of “abandoning in mid-air” the fight against terrorism, have helped to make Mali and himself the symbols of unbridled African nationalism.

A fervent advocate of closer ties with Russia, Maïga helped organize a trip to Moscow by his Burkinabe counterpart, Apollinaire Joachim Kyélem de Tambèla, in December 2022.

He may be a man of few words and largely unassuming demeanor, but Colonel Sadio Camara is a crucial pawn for Russian security interests in Mali and West Africa. Since becoming minister of defense in the wake of the August 2020 coup, this Russian-trained officer has made numerous trips to Moscow aimed at strengthening military cooperation between the two countries.

According to several security and diplomatic sources, Camara traveled to Russia to negotiate the contract for the deployment of the Wagner Group in Mali, which took effect in December 2021. Seven months later, in March 2022, just after Russia invaded Ukraine, he was again the one who made the trip to Moscow, accompanied by Air Force Chief of Staff Alou Boï Diarra.

Since then, deliveries of Russian war equipment have multiplied on the tarmac of Bamako’s airport. Camara was quick to praise the “win-win partnership with the Russian Federation” when he took delivery of fighter jets and attack helicopters in August 2022, without ever accepting responsibility for Wagner’s presence on Malian soil.

Camara was sanctioned by Washington on July 24, along with Diarra and another air force official, for having “facilitated the deployment and expansion” of Wagner in Mali.

Kemi Seba made a name for himself in France as head of the Tribu Ka, a Black supremacist and anti-Semitic group that was dissolved by the courts in 2006. Nathalie Yamb made her debut in the political arena in Côte d’Ivoire, as an advisor to opposition member Mamadou Koulibaly, before being expelled by Abidjan.

Since then, the French-Beninese and the Swiss-Cameroonian have discovered common enemies: French policy in Africa and the heads of state they consider to be subservient to the former colonial power. And their collaboration has met with great success on social media.

The independent status claimed by these two “pan-African” influencers does, however, have its limits. The US State Department has described them as “essential links in [Wagner Group] Yevgeny Prigozhin’s network,” with “both of them having disseminated pro-Kremlin propaganda,” through participation in events organized by AFRIC, Prigozhin’s front company in charge of Russian influence operations on the continent.

Previously unknown to the general public, Yamb caused quite a stir at the first Russia-Africa summit in October 2019. There, she condemned the “French enclosure of Africa” and came out in support of greater Russian cooperation on the continent, earning her the nickname “the Lady from Sochi.”

As for Kemi Seba, whose real name is Stellio Capo Chichi, he gained notoriety across Africa in 2017 by burning 5,000 CFA francs, deemed a “colonial currency,” in Dakar. He has admitted to having been in contact with Prigozhin as well as other Russian public figures, all the while proclaiming to be in pursuit of Africa’s interests alone.

Yamb and Seba appeared side-by-side on Thursday, July 27, at the second Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg.

This Ivorian businessman, originally from Burkina Faso, is the head of a pro-Russian, anti-Western disinformation network in the Central African Republic and Burkina Faso. Described by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) as a “lobbyist close to the Wagner world,” Douamba became a key player for Russia in Africa in 2018, following a business failure.

First, in the Central African Republic, where Wagner had just deployed itself, he managed Russian propaganda out of the “Office of Information and Communication in the Central African Republic, the center of influence set up by the group within the Central African presidency,” according to the international investigative collective All Eyes on Wagner.

At the same time, Douamba used Aimons notre Afrique (ANA, “We love our Africa”), an NGO he founded in 2011, and its communications arm to launch a campaign against France in the Central African Republic in 2018. These efforts were thought to be “financed by Lobaye Invest, the Wagner group’s predecessor company in the Central African Republic,” according to All Eyes on Wagner.

In 2021, after helping secure the re-election of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, his disinformation network was dismantled by Meta. Facebook’s parent company then deleted around 80 of its accounts and accused this framework “linked to the ANA” of using “fake accounts to publish content” that was pro-Russian and anti-French.

His network then moved to Burkina Faso in the summer of 2022, where Douamba pursued the same objectives with a “digital performance agency” called Groupe Panafricain pour le Commerce et l’Investissement (GPCI, Pan-African Group for Trade and Investment). Characterizing the group’s activities as “covert influence operations,” Meta dismantled it too, in May 2023.

Ahoua Don Mello first came to public attention as the final spokesperson for President Laurent Gbagbo (2000-2011) before his downfall. The Ivorian engineer, trained at the prestigious Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, then moved on to another member of the Socialist International: Guinea’s Alpha Condé (2010-2021), for whom he became, in 2017, the man behind major infrastructure projects after six years of exile in Ghana. It’s a role he occupied until Condé’s overthrow in September 2021.

At the time of the coup in Guinea, Don Mello was in transit in Paris, waiting for a flight to Moscow where he was to meet with potential investors. What happened next epitomizes Russian opportunism: Rather than cancel the trip, his contacts in Moscow had him follow through with his travel plans and seized the occasion to poach him.

Recruited by his Russian employers as a special advisor in charge of investments in Africa, Don Mello has since expanded his business network and added another role to his resume. Backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime, in May 2022 he was appointed as the BRIC representative for West and Central Africa.

In 2008, Cameroonian journalist Justin Tagouh founded the television channel Afrique Média, which has described itself as “the torchbearer of rising Africa.” With 760,000 subscribers on YouTube, the channel does not just settle for a pan-African editorial line; it is also one of the main media outlets for Russian propaganda on the continent.

Once it signed a partnership with the Russian channel RT in December 2022, its headlines became unmistakable, with its on-air journalists editorializing about how “Africa and Russia have common enemies” and “the end is coming soon for misleading Western propaganda.” Moreover, Prigozhin himself was a guest on July 25.

Tagouh, who has also presented himself on Twitter as “editor of the magazine International Afrique Média and of Courrier confidentiel,” is a media entrepreneur well acquainted with circles of power. From the African Union (AU) Summit in Addis Ababa and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) Summit in Kinshasa in February, to the United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries in Qatar and the Russia-Africa Parliamentary Conference in Moscow in March, the Cameroonian has traveled from summit to summit to meet with the continent’s most powerful players.

As they did in Sochi in October 2019, Afrique Média’s teams provided uncritical coverage of the second Russia-Africa summit that recently took place in St. Petersburg.