Johannesburg, South Africa — Billboards and videos popping up in several African cities show 20th-century independence leaders and anti-colonial quotes as part of a drive to promote the Kremlin-backed outlet RT.

What they don’t advertise is that the Russian outlet being promoted has been largely blocked in the West for being part of Putin’s propaganda network and for pushing disinformation, including about the war in Ukraine.

The ad campaign seeks to tap into Africa’s colonial past — another tactic that disinformation experts say Russia regularly uses to try to sow division.

“Your Values. Shared,” promise billboards highlighting Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s first president; Ugandan independence leader Milton Obote; and former Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah. Another features Robert Mugabe, who was much-admired for leading Zimbabwe to independence but was later widely seen by his citizens as a tyrant.

In addition, travelers passing through Addis Ababa Bole International Airport, one of the continent’s major transport hubs, will be met with large-screen digital video promos for RT.

In a press release, the television network said the campaign “emphasizes RT’s commitment to [the] dismantling of neo-colonialist narratives in news media.”

“Pervasive western mainstream media dominance is something that RT has had to battle for nearly two decades,” RT deputy editor-in-chief Anna Belkina said in a recent op-ed on the rationale behind the campaign.

“They all come from the same handful of countries. And yet they have the gall to tell the entire world what to think and how to feel about the rest of the world, even about the ‘audience’ countries themselves,” she wrote.

RT was “a voice of dissent in the media landscape,” she declared.

But that is not the full story. Media watchdogs and disinformation analysts have long pointed to how Russia and China seek to gain a foothold in Africa, using free content and funding with local media as a sweetener.

And Russia is the leading source of disinformation on the continent, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies said. Its March 2024 report found a nearly fourfold increase in disinformation campaigns targeting African countries, with an aim of “triggering destabilizing and antidemocratic consequences.”

“Russia received quite a setback at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, because within a few weeks, Europe had imposed sanctions on Russia and the feed of RT that comes into the South African and African markets on DStv [Digital Satellite TV] … was cut,” said Steven Gruzd, a Russia expert at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Pretoria, adding that the media campaign “is a little bit of a reaction to the frustration it’s had.”

The network that once ran across Europe, Canada, Australia and the United States has largely lost its impact following Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine.

Belkina said in addition to the ad blitz, RT is also starting a new TV show based out of Kenya, anchored by well-known Kenyan lawyer P.L.O. Lumumba.

Pivot to Africa

RT was formed in 2005, funded by the Russian government. Originally called Russia Today, it has different language channels, including English, Arabic, Spanish and French.

It has often been described as a propaganda outlet and has been found by media regulators like Britain’s Ofcom to lack impartiality and broadcast “misleading” material. In 2017, it was forced to register as a foreign agent in the United States.

RT gets hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. In its early years, it managed to attract big names to host its shows, including Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and late American TV host Larry King.

But the broadcaster was badly hit by sanctions in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and was taken off the air in many parts of the world, including Europe and North America.

Silicon Valley giants also reacted. Meta blocked RT Facebook and Instagram pages in the European Union. Microsoft removed RT from its platforms, and Apple removed it from its App Store in all countries but Russia. YouTube blocked RT in March 2022, though its content can reportedly be found on the channel through proxies.

Though many African countries were loath to take a stance on the Ukraine war, with most abstaining from U.N. votes on the issue, RT wasn’t immune from problems in Africa. South African satellite broadcaster MultiChoice cut RT from its pan-African DSTV service, saying EU sanctions had forced them to do so.

South Africans were still able to watch RT on Chinese channel StarSat until it was pulled from that station in 2023.

And it’s unclear what became of plans announced in 2022 to open an English-language hub in Johannesburg. Asked via email by VOA, Beklina said it was operating. The journalist chosen to run the hub, Paula Slier, has since left RT. When VOA reached out via messaging app she said as far as she was aware, there was no brick-and-mortar office in the city now. But she did not comment further.

RT has made inroads elsewhere on the continent, establishing a bureau in Algeria last year. Also last year, Afrique Media in Cameroon signed a partnership with the Russian network.

“Since March 2022, RT headquarters in Moscow has had its eyes fixed on Africa, where it is planning a long-term presence,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement last year. The organization says RT is “available in the Maghreb, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Cameroon.”

According to RT’s website, the channel can also be viewed in Kenya, Tanzania and other African countries through China’s StarTimes service. It can be seen on satellite or the internet in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and elsewhere.

Asked by VOA how many African countries does RT broadcast in, Beklina replied “many.”

Anti-colonial narrative

RT is using the narrative that Russia was never a colonial power to try and gain traction in Africa, experts say. Many African ruling parties have strong historical links to Moscow because the former Soviet Union supported their liberation struggles against colonial or white-minority rule.

“I think the collective antipathy towards colonialism, which is deeply ingrained in African populations, is a string that Russia is pulling,” said Gruzd.

Asked by VOA whether he thinks the campaign will resonate with Africans, he said it was hard to know what proportion, but judging by pro-Russia and anti-Western sentiment on African Twitter/X, there were certainly some people on the continent with whom it would resonate.

“I think there would be some sympathy for this line and some support for it,” Gruzd said. “On the other hand, I think there are a lot of people who see through this and can see the agenda behind what is being promoted.”

He noted that Russia has been making inroads in Africa for some time, particularly though the Wagner mercenary group, which has gotten involved with governments in Mali, the Central African Republic and other countries.

But he said Russia has also been active in the media sector.

“In Francophone Africa, they put forward a very anti-West, very anti-French line. Also very, very involved in social media campaigns and disinformation, exacerbating local grievances,” Gruzd noted.

Anton Harber, a former journalism professor at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand, said he thought RT’s ad campaign was “too dated” to hold much sway with young Africans — using African leaders from generations ago, some of whom are now viewed skeptically.

“There is a huge irony in RT promoting itself as a voice of anti-colonialism at a time when Russia is increasing its influence on the continent in ways that could be described as neo-colonial. One thing we know about RT is that it is not an African voice, but Putin’s outlet, there to serve him and his country,” Harber said. “So, it is dressing up its ambitions for influence in, with a paternalistic anti-colonial rhetoric.”
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