🧵👇 #Russian Telegram channel says the quiet part out loud following #BurkinaFaso coup 2.0.
Kremlin propaganda channels usually promote the narrative that Russia will help West Africa by fighting jihadists (via Wagner) and emancipating citizens from the French neocolonial state.
But we know there is a different agenda: resources. Russian proxy companies own mines in multiple African countries, and, when Russia isn't in control of lucrative resources, Wagner operatives have no problem raiding and massacring miners.
What does this have to do with the recent coup in Burkina Faso? Five days after the coup, a Russian Telegram channel with 800k subscribers posted the following:
Notice the last line? "Niger and its uranium mines are next in line." There's the Russian agenda, laid out in plain text. Russia might present itself as an alternative to former colonisers, but the Kremlin isn't in Africa to help Africans.
Some more info on the recent coup in this week's @DFRLab Russian War Report.
Here is my analysis of what the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), #Sudan's paramilitary group, were doing to promote their image on social media just weeks before the military coup on October 25. 🧵👇medium.com/dfrlab/sudanes…
In September Facebook removed a network of 993 assets linked to the #RSF for violating their policy against "foreign or government interference." The assets were used to amplify pro-RSF content and support the group's leader, Hemeti. about.fb.com/wp-content/upl…
This post from one of the most active pages, نحنا دعامه (“We are the rapid forces”) claimed Hemeti was the only hope for Sudan. The image is copied directly from his verified FB page.