Close to a year since the invasion of Ukraine, activists aligned with Russia are pushing pro-Kremlin messages in Africa using a coordinated French-language network spanning Facebook, YouTube, Telegram and other online channels.
The network, dubbed "Russosphere," is connected to a far-right Belgian political activist who was involved in overseeing contested Russian-backed referenda in Crimea and Donbas in 2014, according to researchers at Logically, a company that tracks online misinformation and disinformation. The activist, Luc Michel, was also involved in a 2021 effort to create a breakaway "Republic of Detroit'' in the U.S., which garnered little attention but could serve as a blueprint for Russian-aligned efforts to influence American politics, Logically says.
