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A new anti-French cartoon has started circulating on pro-Russian social media, the online intelligence site Atlantic Council has identified. In a simplistic video, the Russian Wagner militia is presented as a liberation force helping Malians against the French presence.
In addition to its offensive in Ukraine, Russia is waging a battle in Africa to impose its interests through a communication strategy to discredit the French presence and glorify the Wagner militia, which acts with the approval of the Kremlin.
Through dozens of Facebook pages that deify the figure of Vladimir Putin, WhatsApp and Telegram groups, as well as fake Twitter accounts, Russian interests try to impose their anti-French narrative in various African countries.
In January 2023, the United States designated the Russian Wagner paramilitary group an “international criminal organization.” Composed of thousands of fighters, mostly mercenaries and former prisoners of the common order, the group led by Evgueni Prigojine, close to Vladimir Putin, plays a central role in the war in Ukraine, but also in Africa.
Present in several African countries, Wagner was accused of torture and murder by the NGO Human Rights Watch in the Central African Republic in July 2021. The private Russian militia also settled in Mali after the departure of the French army that was fighting against the jihadist presence.
In mid-January, the US analysis center Atlantic Council identified a cartoon in which Wagner agents help a soldier from Mali – a former French colony – to destroy a giant snake with the colors of the French flag. In this same video, a Burkina Faso soldier later appears fighting against armed zombies bearing the French tricolor shield. In the end, Wagner’s soldiers head for the Ivory Coast. A sign that the armed group wants to establish itself in this country as well?
This is not the first time that a pro-Russian propaganda video has circulated in an African country. In another cartoon, a Wagner soldier killed a rat wearing a beret and a sailor’s shirt supposed to represent France.
