How a Russian influence operation turned African newsrooms into delivery points

The modern propaganda business rarely arrives with marching bands. It comes as copy, invoices and a convenient promise that the article is already ready to publish. That, at least, is what leaked documents suggest happened across West and Central Africa, where Russian-linked operators allegedly pushed hundreds of texts into local media outlets with the help of intermediaries.

The operation, described in the documents as Project Afrika, was uncovered after Pan-African outlet The Continent received the material and shared it with a consortium led by Forbidden Stories, including FRANCE 24. According to the files, the network belonged to Africa Politology, internally called the Company, a structure first created by the Wagner Group and later taken over by Russian secret services in 2023. Between June and November 2024, the documents indicate, it managed to place 644 articles in at least 35 media outlets across central and west Africa, at a cost of more than $300,000.

Senegal became one of the key points of interest. FRANCE 24 travelled to Dakar to trace how the campaign worked in practice, and PressAfrik’s head of publication, Ibrahima Lissa Faye, said the outlet had published 13 articles containing Russian propaganda. His reaction was blunt enough without needing embellishment: such pieces, he said, clearly gave the impression that they were meant to manipulate opinion. In a media market dependent on advertising and hungry for volume, the temptation to accept ready-made content is hardly mysterious.

That is the uncomfortable part. The documents suggest a system built on local intermediaries, who placed articles in news sites that were porous, under pressure and apparently willing to run material without asking too many questions. The content, according to the investigation, was designed to advance Russia’s strategic agenda, including anti-France and anti-Ukraine positions and plain disinformation. If one wants a lesson here, it is not about exotic foreign skulduggery. It is about the fragility of media ecosystems that can be bought cheaply and filled quickly.

One name identified in the reporting is Cameroonian journalist Jérôme Ebossama, who was linked in the documents to 18 articles allegedly published in a West African outlet. When contacted, he declined to answer questions about them. He said the Africa Confidential documents, including invoices showing his involvement in an online blogging campaign, were fake and not his, and claimed he was the victim of a manipulation campaign.

The broader picture is more revealing than any single denial. Russia’s influence work in Africa, at least as described by the leak, was not a matter of loud speeches or crude slogans. It was a business model: buy reach, exploit weak editorial controls, and dress propaganda up as ordinary news. That is cheaper than persuasion, and often more effective. It also leaves an awkward question for newsrooms that rely on volume and advertising income: how much of their output is journalism, and how much is simply rented space?

Written by Freya Stensrud freya.stensrud@alpineweekly.com