Africa: The Kremlin’s Efforts to Spread Deadly Disinformation in Africa

• African Initiative primarily spreads its disinformation and propaganda via numerous branded and unbranded social media accounts. Two of its main accounts are “African Initiative” and “African Kalashnikov”.
• The organization is highly active on its website, afrinz.ru, and VKontakte, and uses these platforms and others amplified by additional pro-Russian accounts.
• The popular Telegram channel “Smile and Wave” is a frequent amplifier of African Initiative content.

Foreign information manipulation remains a critical threat around the world, as authoritarian actors like the Russian government use it to exacerbate social divisions, skew national discourse, and fundamentally disrupt people’s ability to make informed decisions for themselves and their communities. By supporting this disinformation network, the Russian government is actively harming the countries it targets and the African continent as a whole.

Recently, the U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement Center exposed the Kremlin’s attempts to undermine global support for Ukraine by covertly spreading disinformation in Latin America. The core tactic in that campaign involved laundering Moscow-produced content through local individuals and groups to make pro-Kremlin disinformation and propaganda seem organic to the communities in which it was spread. Following the disruption of that operation, the Russian government is now trying the same tactic in Africa with a new set of actors and entities.

Foreign information manipulation is a dangerous and destabilizing tactic, but it is especially damaging when targeting health information. This Kremlin disinformation campaign must come to an immediate end before it poses an even greater risk to health security in Africa.

Office of the Spokesperson