From February 2 to 7, 2023, NATO’s massive international attack against the geopolitician Luc Michel and his pro-Russian networks of the ‘Russosphere’: more than 50 articles in 15 languages, TV shows, bogus « reports »…
BUT “Luc Michel, czar of Russian propaganda in Africa” (Euractiv, France) and “one of the greatest Kremlin propagandists in Africa” (TéléMoustique, Belgium), say the NATO media!
The Belgian (Flemish) daily newspaper De Morgen already wrote in December 2022: “Michel will now act as a geopolitical entrepreneur to enlarge the Russian sphere of influence in Africa: “a group of independent entrepreneurs, we have invented the concept of hybrid warfare. We work with Russia, but we don’t pay for security services. A hybrid war feeds on different ways: military, diplomatic and communication. I do the latter. “And then there is the Belgian, the activist Luc Michel, with whom it all started. He, together with the ideologue Jean Thiriart (…) with the organization of the elections, shaped the instruments of the reconquest of the Soviet empire and created a space, from Lisbon to Vladivostok”. Michel is delighted with the results of the last referendums in the People’s Republics of Luhansk, Donetsk,
* Also (in French) :Luc Michel, Outline of hybrid warfare. My action as an “independent geopolitical entrepreneur”on https://www.palestine-solidarite.fr/essai-de-la-guerre-hybride-ix-mon-action-en-tant-qu-entrepreneur-independant/
PRESS REVIEW/« PUTIN ŚWIĘTUJE. ZDOBYŁ AFRYKAŃSKI PRZYCZÓŁEK I PRĘŻY MUSKUŁY » (VIRTUANA POLSKA, 2023 02 14)
https://wiadomosci.wp.pl/putin-swietuje-zdobyl-afrykanski-przyczolek-i-prezy-muskuly-6866378244364896a
Interesting polish analysis on Luc Michel, Russia, Africa and Sudan…
TRANSLATION FROM POLISH TO ENGLISH/« PUTIN CELEBRATES. HE GAINED AN AFRICAN FOOTHOLD AND FLEXED HIS MUSCLES » (VIRTUANA POLSKA, 2023 02 14)
Excerpts/“Today we can confirm with certainty that the West’s attempts to isolate Russia have failed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday in Moscow (…) He has just returned from a trip to several African countries, the third in the last seven months and the second this year. In 2023 alone Lavrov visited Mali, Mauritania, South Africa, Eswatini, Angola, Eritrea and Sudan. All these countries, despite the war in Ukraine, maintain close relations with Russia. For example, Eritrea was one of the few countries in the world that voted against the UN resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
HOWEVER, LAVROV MANAGED TO WIN THE MOST IN NEIGHBORING SUDAN.
After many months of negotiations, Russia signed an agreement with the government in Khartoum allowing for the creation of a Russian naval base in Port Sudan on the Red Sea. This has long been Putin’s ambition. (…) Russia, increasingly isolated in the West, then remembers Africa, assertively entering the continent with its own policy, competitive with other powers present in Africa.
WHY RUSSIA AFRICA?
What was the Putin regime looking for there after the annexation of Crimea? In short, he needed three things: raw materials, markets and international prestige. Russia itself is, of course, a resource power. However, in Africa there are deposits of raw materials, which are attractive for various reasons, whether for key Russian institutions or oligarchs associated with the Kremlin, who previously did not manage to divide the Russian gas or oil pie. If we look at the countries where Russia’s presence has clearly increased in the last eight years, we can easily see that they are connected by raw material resources. Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria have rich deposits of oil and gas. There are gold deposits in Mali and Burkina Faso. Niger has Africa’s third uranium deposits, which have long been of interest to Rosatom, a Russian company that deals with everything related to nuclear energy production.
UKRAINE IS NOT ENOUGH FOR PUTIN. HE LOOKS TOWARDS AFRICA
(…) Finally, thirdly, the diplomatic and economic expansion in Africa was supposed to allow Russia to play the role of a global power on the world chessboard, capable of competing not only with the United States and former European colonial powers, but also with China. After Ukraine and Syria, Africa was to be the next theater where the Russians show the world that the times of Gorbachev and Yeltsin are over, and that Russia is again what it has always been and, according to Putin, must be: a global empire. Undoubtedly, the agreement with Sudan is intended to send exactly this message to the world. Although the base will be small – it will accommodate 300 soldiers and 4 ships – it is the symbol that counts: Russia, contrary to the actions of the West, not only does not become a globally isolated pariah, but also militaryly enters the Red Sea, a basin through which 30% of the world’s population flows. global container trade.
After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, these three reasons for Russia’s increased presence in Africa are complemented by one more: Russia is looking for partners in Africa to break the diplomatic isolation of the West. This is not only purely propaganda. Good relations with Africa translate, for example, into the distribution of votes in the UN, where as many as 17 African countries abstained from voting on the resolution condemning the Russian invasion.
Russia’s expansion in Africa after 2014 is based on three main pillars. The first is the Wagnerians (…)
DISINFORMATION (SIC) AND « MEMORY DIPLOMACY »
Various entities associated with Prigozhin deal not only with warfare, but also disinformation, as documents on Russian tactics in Africa revealed in 2019 by the London Dossier Center showed. This shouldn’t be too surprising. In 2018, Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller officially accused Prigozhin of running a troll farm in the United States during the 2016 presidential election to facilitate Trump’s victory. In the CAR, Prigozhin’s men were to set up a newspaper and a radio station attacking politicians considered pro-French. Also in Madagascar, the island’s largest daily newspaper is to be controlled by Russia.
“RUSSOSPHERE”’:DISINFORMATION (SIC) IS RUSSIA’S SECOND KEY TOOL IN AFRICA.
Today, it focuses on two most important topics: presenting the Kremlin’s point of view on the war in Ukraine and attacks on the West.
Before the invasion in February last year, a new social network, Russosphère, was launched in Africa. It focused on defending Russia, attacks on France and « Nazi » and « Satanic » Ukraine. As the BBC and Logically investigation showed, the network was created by Belgian Luc Michel (..) he was an adviser to Gaddafi, he collaborated with the Putin youth organization Nasi. When asked by the BBC, he claims that « private sponsors » paid him to create the site – however, it would be strange, knowing Russia, if the trail with the money did not eventually lead to one of Putin’s people.
In addition to vulgar disinformation, the third tool of Russian policy in Africa is the « diplomacy of memory ».Traveling through Africa, Lavrov and other Russian politicians and diplomats refer to the anti-colonial memory of the continent, to the ties that many African capitals built with Moscow during the decolonization period.At that time, the USSR supported national liberation movements in Africa, actively helped black activists from South Africa fighting the apartheid system, educated African elites, and helped build the infrastructure of newly established states. Many African leaders saw the USSR as a more attractive development model than the Western one – which did not end well for the countries modernized in accordance with the instructions of Soviet advisers. Today, Russia is trying to revive those ties, to convince Africa that the continent is in the same boat with Russia. In the Russian narrative, Russia has not only never been a colonial power, but also, like Africa, must fight the West trying to colonize it – a war with Ukraine would, in this view, be an anti-colonial war against Western imperialism (…)
http://www.lucmichel.net/https://twitter.com/LucMichelPCN/https://www.facebook.com/Pcn.luc.Michel/https://vk.com/lucmicheltv
