The Foundation for Defense of National Values - sanctioned by Treasury for its role in US election interference - has published the results of its recent polling in #Mali.
FZNC sent Maksim Shugalei to Mali late last year.
They claim that their 4,300 respondents generally feel more positively about the direction of the country since June of last year
They also report negative views of MINUSMA and French contingents in Mali
… and very positive attitudes towards Putin.
They also claim to have observed substantial increase in popular support for Assimi Goita - given their past activity, this is more valuable in telling us FZNC’s and it’s Russian patrons preferences
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THREAD on GRANITE, the newest "Wagner Group" movie about Russian PMCs in Mozambique in 2019.
These are moves MADE by the same networks that are sending Russian mercenaries abroad — they show how these networks are trying to frame themselves for Russian and foreign audiences
Granite takes the actual story of the Wagner Group’s failures in Mozambique and casts them as righteous and heroic, within a Russian humanitarian tradition, motivated by “Ideas” not money.
(Note that there are some reports that Wagner is still in Mozambique, fulfilling ISR roles rather than their original combat activities.)
TASS reports that EU members have approved the introduction of sanctions against Wagner Group entities. The EU Council will then have to approve this decision on the 13th.
Killer investigation from @ZackKopplin into the Barzanis US property holdings dropped today. Some key insights into how corporate secrecy and property ownership works in the US, benefiting kleptocrats and the super wealthy
The Barzanis have been lucky in most large leaks - they haven’t appeared in the Panama Papers and the Pandora Papers. They do appear in @C4ADS Sandcastles database of Dubai properties, and as Zack shows, hidden deep in US records as well.
For more on the Barzani family in the UAE, check out Zack’s thread:
On Friday, a trailer dropped for the newest Prigozhin movie, and the sequel to Tourist: “GRANITE,” an action movie about Russian “specialists” Mozambique
Mozambique is an odd choice for setting their sequel to a movie about the Central African Republic because by all accounts, Wagner had a terrible time there
A lot of the same faces in this movie as in Tourist, and it looks like fundamentally the same set up. Seems considerably more racist in its portrayal of Africans.
It’s difficult to imagine how France, EU, US can interface reliably w the Russian parties for a few reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that Russian PMCs have reportedly made use of EU-trained forces and MINUSCA assets…
Amazing new Conflict Armament Research @conflictarm report on Russian weapons in the Donbas makes use of @C4ADS' Seamless Horizons data environment to find out how European components ended up in Russian UAVs in the Donbas