A10 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, APRIL 25 , 2022
tion.
The Internet Research Agency,
which the United States says is
financed by Prigozhin — known
as “Putin’s chef” for his catering
empire and coziness with the
Kremlin — has been sowing de-
ceit online for nearly a decade.
Ever since Russia seized
Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in
2014, analysts say, Moscow has
sought to strengthen alliances
where it could, harnessing the
agency’s trolls in an effort to sway
hearts and minds.
“Putin has been trying to get as
many countries as he can to
reinforce his narratives,” said Na-
taliya Bugayova, a researcher fo-
cused on Russia and Africa at the
Institute for the Study of War in
Washington.
Attention shifted to African
nations, where movements to
sever ties with former colonizers
like France were growing. Web
campaigns painted Russia as a
fierce ally with no history of
exerting control on the continent.
Digital rallying cries tapped long-
held frustrations toward the West
in general and France in particu-
lar.
Moscow wasn’t the only power
associated with fake accounts. In
late 2020, Facebook removed
pages tied to the French military
rhetorically competing with pro-
Russian trolls in several African
countries. Unlike the French net-
works, Facebook said at the time,
the Russian campaigns were
known to team up with locals and
co-opt “authentic voices to join
their influence operations, likely
to avoid detection and help ap-
pear more authentic.”
Once sporadic and unsophisti-
cated, the operations have
evolved over the past year to
connect better with specific audi-
ences, said Justin Arenstein,
Code for Africa’s founder: Less
reliance on Google Translate.
More understanding of local dia-
lects and politics.
Many pages urge followers to
join private groups on WhatsApp
or Telegram, where they churn
out material that could get them
banned on Facebook.
“They adapt almost as fast as
we can figure out ways to detect
them,” Arenstein said.
Pro-Russian networks today
SEE AFRICA ON AHe switched on the television
to the news channel France 24.
The screen showed images of
shelled Ukrainian cities.
“Zelensky provoked all this,” he
said. “It’s Zelensky’s fault if peo-
ple are dying, not Putin’s.”The influence campaigns
The disinformation swirled
well before Russia invaded
Ukraine. In January, Facebook
removed three pages targeting
“multiple African nations” that it
said were linked to the Internet
Research Agency in St. Peters-
burg, a Kremlin-linked group tar-
geted by U.S. sanctions for its role
in interfering with the 2016 elec-loyal to al-Qaeda and the Islamic
State occupy much of this West
African nation of 21 million de-
spite the six-year presence of
French special forces. Sawadogo
wondered: Didn’t France have
the resources to stop the horror?
“The problem is they don’t
want to,” he said. “They benefit
from our suffering.”BEHIND THE WEST AND NATO... THEY HAVE ONLY ONE
GOAL, DEHUMANIZATION OF
MAN.. .”
Sawadogo’s tiny concrete room
was so hot that he kept a pack of
tissues around to wipe the sweat
from his face. He mourned the
loss of his old life in the village —
more space, more shade. Fighters
watch list have tens of thousands
of followers. And one is frequent-
ly open on Sawadogo’s phone.
On the day before he picked up
his special order, Sawadogo
scrolled through posts with a
Washington Post reporter at his
home on the outskirts of the
Burkinabe capital, Ouagadougou.
There were flattering portraits of
Putin, photoshopped images of
President Biden and Ukrainian
leader Volodymyr Zelensky in de-
meaning poses, extensive France-
bashing and lots of declarations
in capital letters:
“The UKRAINIAN ARMY HAS
BEEN DEFEATED.”
“THIS IS THE HIDDEN PLANSawadogo, a 30-year-old seller
of children’s toys, said he became
a fan of Vladimir Putin last year
after watching videos about Rus-
sian 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 me-
dia feeds blamed France and the
West for fueling the bloodshed —
while framing Putin as a hero
poised to help. “Thank you, Pu-
tin,” read one post on his screen.
“You are the Jesus of modern
times.”
Pro-Russian content has
surged here in recent months,
according to groups tracking dis-
information in Africa, as Putin
aims to expand his country’s
global influence and counter rep-
utational damage during the war
in Ukraine. Researchers have
identified and reported dozens of
accounts in Burkina Faso and its
neighbors pumping out coordi-
nated blitzes of Russian govern-
ment talking points: NATO is the
aggressor. Moscow is on a hu-
manitarian mission in Ukraine.
The rise in Russian online
propaganda marks an expansion
of the Kremlin’s influence cam-
paigns in the region, according to
four Western officials, who spoke
on the condition of anonymity to
discuss ongoing investigations.
Entities linked to Yevgeniy Prigo-
zhin, an oligarch close to Putin,
have funded fake news websites
and online ads in several West
African countries, said two of the
officials, who have reviewed in-
telligence on the matter. One
official in Burkina Faso saw little
Moscow-friendly chatter until
last fall: “Now it’s all over the
place.” Another official in neigh-
boring Mali described the up-
swing as “industrial.”
Prigozhin and Kremlin spokes-
man Dmitry Peskov did not re-
spond to requests for comment.
Code for Africa, an investiga-
tive consortium tracking disin-
formation across 21 nations, has
mapped a network of 175 Face-
book pages over the past year that
peddle similar pro-Russian, anti-
Western narratives to audiences
across the region.
Several pages on the group’s
AFRICA FROM A
In W est Africa, Russia is building i ts image of a superpower
DANIELLE PAQUETTE/THE WASHINGTON POST
Toy seller Ismael Sawadogo, 31, attends a pro-Russian rally in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on March 27. Sawadogo said he became a fan
of Russian President Vladimir Putin last year after watching videos on Facebook. Messages on his social media feeds frame Putin as a hero.“Putin has been trying to get as many countriesas he can to reinforce his narratives.”
Nataliya Bugayova, a researcher at the Institute for the Study of WarWEGET ITDONE.OVER TEN THOUSAND HOMEOWNERS
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