 Good morning. My name is Dr. Joseph Sonny. I'm the Vice President at the United States Institute of Peace, which was established in 1984 by the U.S. Congress as a nonpartisan public institution with the mission to help prevent, mitigate and resolve conflicts around the world. Thank you for joining us both in person and online, particularly in person for breathing the weather and the traffic. So thank you so much for being in the room with us. Again, today I'm honored to welcome a distinguished panel to discuss a timely issue, the influence of Russia on the African continent. This conversation is particularly timely and relevant coming just one month after the Wagner mutiny, couple of days before the Russia-African summit, and just a few hours after the South African announcement that President Putin will not attend the BRICS summit in South Africa. So thank you again for joining us. I'm expected to have wonderful conversations and an insightful discussion with our panelists. I will then turn it out to my colleagues and friends, Tom Shi, who is a distinguished fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Tom, over to you, please. Thank you, Sonny. We're looking forward to an excellent discussion today. There's been a lot of attention over the last 10 years or so about China and Africa, not so much about Russia and Africa. And so I think this is going to be a very illuminating discussion. As Sonny mentioned, we have an excellent set of panelists. And I think if I could make one point, I think they will really bring the African perspective to this issue. I think we're here in Washington, and so often we view these issues of Chinese involvement in Africa or Russian involvement in Africa very much from the U.S. lens. That's important. But I think for us really to have effective policy, we need to understand things from the ground and I'm confident we'll get that perspective and then we'll have a little conversation and hear from our audience and hopefully shed some light on these issues. Lots happening, Sonny mentioned. So it's my honor to introduce our panel. We have Dr. Joseph Siegel who leads research and strategic communications at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, which generates policy analysis of Africa's security challenges. Joe has written widely on Russia's strategy in Africa. Prior to joining the Africa Center, he was a field practitioner for many years so he has real on the ground experience, as well as a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior advisor for Democratic Governance at DAI. Dr. Siegel holds an MA degree from Michigan State University and a doctorate degree from the University of Maryland. We are joined also by Amaka Anku who leads the Africa practice at the Eurasia Group where she helps clients understand the interactions, politics, politics, and markets across Africa. She is an adjunct professor at Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service. She teaches a graduate class on political risk and she holds a background in education. She received a BA degree from Princeton University and a law degree from Harvard Law School. And then lastly we have Katrina Doxy who is an associate director and associate fellow for the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies where she analyzes international and domestic terrorism and the irregular activities of Iran, Russia, China, and other countries. Before joining CSIS, Ms. Doxy worked as an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. Ms. Doxy holds a BA degree from the University of Chicago and an MA degree from the Johns Hopkins University. So great. I think what we'd do is to kick off, Joe, if you could give a five minute overview perhaps of some of your observations of Russian Africa and then we'll turn it over to Amaka. Okay, sounds good. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Sani. Appreciate the invitation to be at USIP. I think there's a lot to talk about with regards to Russia and Africa and as Sani mentioned there's a lot going on. I think I would start and perhaps if there's one thing you're going to remember from what I say is that Russia provides less than 1% of the foreign direct investment that goes into Africa. Moreover, you know, the amount of trade that Russia provides and has with Africa is modest, about $14 billion, and it's been in decline. At the 2019 Russia-Africa summit, Vladimir Putin said that Russia would be doubling the amount of trade that it has with Africa. At that time it was about $20 billion. The idea was to get up to $40 billion in five years by 2024. Instead, it's declined. Likewise, Russia's GDP has been in decline pretty steadily since 2013. It was about $2.2 trillion then. It's about $1.8 trillion today. So the point is Russia is not gaining influence. It is not offering attractive partnership with Africa through its conventional means, through trade and economic development. Rather, Russia is gaining influence through irregular means. These irregular means are often illegal and they're low-cost. They're asymmetric. So this includes, I mean, it is focused on an elite capture model trying to come into support of beleaguered, isolated regimes who don't have a lot of international supporters and helping to keep them in power. You know, and they do this through these regular tools like through the deployment of Wagner-Pyramillitary, disinformation, electoral interference. And opaque arms for resources deals. And blocking different UN or other international sanctions against these regimes for human rights abuses or blocking democratic development in these countries. So when Russia talks about partnership with Africa, it's really partnership with the regimes. It isn't partnership with the countries. And that's a key difference that I like to unpack as we go forward. So this is a political strategy. It's a low-cost political strategy that Russia is trying to mount. And we often get lost in the details of these irregular tactics. But it's important to keep in mind that this is part of a broader strategy that Russia is mounting and sort of four key strategic objectives that Russia is pursuing on the continent. First is that it's trying to gain access to strategic territory in North Africa. And along the Red Sea, this would provide it, you know, a military advantage vis-a-vis NATO and securing key maritime and other transportation routes. Secondly is to avoid isolation following sanctions and the process to undermine Western influence on the continent. Third is to normalize authoritarianism. This is both a means for Russia to gain more entry into these countries as well as a way of reducing pressure and the threat of colored revolutions back in Moscow. And the fourth is to reshape the UN-based international system, really moving away from a rules-based system subject to international law and making it more of a transactional model according to bilateral ties. Now, when we look at, you know, Russia's engagements on the continent over the last few years, you know, we have to say that this model has helped. This has helped Russia advance its strategic objectives in Africa and globally. You know, Russia has avoided isolation to some degree. Africa provides the most welcoming region for Russia of any, you know, of any other, you know, region in the world. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has made, you know, eight trips to the continent since the war in Ukraine was launched by Russia. And it highlights that, you know, Africa has become more important to Russia over time than really Russia is to Africa. So, you know, Africa is a key theater for Russia and its foreign policy. With regards to normalizing authoritarianism, you know, Russia has been active at undermined democracy in 23 different African countries in recent years over a host of, you know, host of tactics. And, you know, this has contributed to the deteriorating democratic decline we've seen on the continent. In fact, in the countries where Russia's been most active, the median Freedom House, Freedom Score is 19 on a score of 0 to 100, whereas the African median is 51. So very clearly there's a governance element of what Russia is trying to do and how it's gaining influence. But, you know, third, Russia has been successful in helping to shape the information narrative on the continent. There are 17, you know, known disinformation campaigns. Russia has been mounting on the continent. Some of these are directed at propping up these favorite regimes. Others are more general, you know, anti-West, anti-democracy, anti-UN, of course pro-Russia, pro-Russian narratives of what's going on. And so, you know, again, Russia has gained through these irregular tools. Now, a side effect of this approach in these irregular tools has been increased instability on the continent. You know, all of these irregular tools have destabilizing effects. And in fact, of the two dozen countries that Russia has been actively trying to engage in, half of them are in conflict. Moreover, in the places that Wagner has been deployed with paramilitaries, the security situation has deteriorated and Wagner itself has been linked credibly to human rights abuses. And so, from a security standpoint, a stability standpoint, things tend to get worse where Russia is most actively engaged. And, you know, notably, you know, that isn't an impediment to Russia. You know, stability in Africa is not one of Russia's strategic objectives. Okay? And so, that's a side effect that is a problem for Africa. It isn't necessarily a problem for Russia and what it's trying to achieve in its engagement on the continent. And so, in sum, this strategy is working for Russia in terms of what it's trying to achieve and we can expect to see more of it in the near future. So, thank you. Thanks, Jero. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Sandy, for having me here. I'm excited for this conversation. And I'm just going to piggyback off where Joe started. Absolutely right that the trade and relationship between Russia and most African countries is quite small, right? So, I just pulled up some data on exports and imports of goods. So, this doesn't include services. Russia imports about $2 billion. Well, the last data was from 2020. $2 billion worth of goods in 2020, right? China was about 56. This is just good. So, it's a little bit bigger when you add services, but it still gives you a sense of the differences, right? U.S. was 20 billion. So, U.S. is also, you know, far behind. China, for most of these countries, this is by far the biggest trade in partner. But, you know, $2 billion, $20 billion, $56 billion. You can see, like, Russia is a fraction, right, of the others. So, why? And as Joe was saying, actually the trade and relationship has declined over the years. Much of what Russia has to offer, Russia doesn't really have that much to offer, right? Much of what African countries get from Russia is arms, right? So, that begs the question, why, despite the small of trade and relationship, despite the sort of lack of real, any real kind of big offerings, you know, what's in it for African countries? Like, why have we seen sort of some disparity in the votes at the U.N. around the Russia-Ukrainian war and so on and so on. So, you know, a few perspectives on that from the African perspective. One is historical. And I don't want to overplay this, but it's important. In the 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s, when a lot of, especially southern African countries were fighting for liberation. And if you think about South Africa, especially, which a lot of people have been thinking about because of the BRIC summit, white minority rule appetite, the only country that helped in the ways that it mattered, right, for the now A&C, then rebel group that was fighting for multiracial democracy was the Soviet Union, right? They helped with guns, with training, with money. In places like Angola and Mozambique, when there was a farmer and they poured millions, billions of dollars to help prevent starvation. And the U.S. was supporting and financing white minority-led oppressive governments in those places. And not only did they finance and support those governments, they did it right up until when it was, right up until very sort of late in the history, they were on the wrong side of history for a very long time, okay? And so that has brought a lot of goodwill from a lot of people who are leaders in those countries, right? The people, the current leaders in the African National Congress in South Africa remember, right, when they were young, that the support from Soviet Union probably prevented deaths and so on and so forth, okay? So it's brought a lot of, you know, now, but I think it's important to remember, that doesn't mean, but I would even say that that influence now is declining, right? Because these guys are old and they're eventually, the people who are coming of age in South Africa don't remember, they don't care, but it gives you some context into, you know, why some of these relationships exist. The second is countries are starved of capital, right? In most African countries, their biggest challenge is financing, okay? And if you're starved of capital, what you want strategically in your foreign policy is to give yourselves as many options as possible. You want a variety of partnerships, okay? So it's not necessarily like, okay, what are they offering? It's, I don't want to box myself into one corner and mind you, my most important trading relationship is China and China has a strategically close relationship with Russia. The friend of my friend is my friend, or at least the friend of my friend is not my enemy, right? So you want to keep those doors open and keep yourself flexible. Now, the other thing that I would say that I think often gets lost in the conversation when we talk about, you know, whether and how Russia's actions in Africa are destabilizing. I think the tendency in the U.S. and from a U.S. audience is to say, you know, and this has been happening a lot with China, let me explain to you why this is bad. Let me explain to you why you should not associate with XYZ, okay? The trading, you know, trading relationship, partnerships, whatever it is, like the Russia-Africa summit that's going to happen next week and that we will likely see several heads of states go. They're not hiring Wagner or going to the Africa summit because they don't understand the risks, right? They're growing adults. They know exactly what they're doing. They don't, you know, but they're doing it and in part, even where there are negative effects, like with Wagner, it's because of the lack of institutional capacity. It's because of the lack of state capacity. It's because of the state of, you know, strength of political institutions. And so I often say what I want U.S. policy to do is to focus on how do we strengthen those things so that we don't have the incentives to do it, not to say don't do it, because what's the point of you telling me don't do it? I know it's bad. I'm doing it because I can get away with it, right? And also think about how, like, you know, from an African perspective, we know, you know, there's so many non-Russian Western firms that do the same things. Glencore, if you just Google Glencore in DRC, right? Glencore in DRC, you know, paid lots of bribes, lots of shady market deals to do lots of stuff that was not in DRC's interest. Like, the difference is that Glencore comes from a country, a state, where it's more likely to be held accountable for those things, right? Wagner doesn't. But will any other company in any other western state do the same things if they could get away with it? And they have. The French in West Africa do the same things, right? All the time. You know, if it's very controversial, the French in West Africa, very corrupt, murky deals, state to state. Again, the risk appetite is a little bit higher in France versus the US. You're more likely to get, you know, shamed in the US. So the point I'm making is human nature and the Latin greed and all of that is the same. What we need to do is focus on how do we strengthen those political institutions. I think that often comes from improving the ability to raise revenue, improving finance and improving capital, investing in the things that make economies competitive, right? Not necessarily just the trade, not necessarily the human rights democracy, da-da-da, but also finance and the bridge, those things that would then help improve capacity. So that's sort of my little advice, I guess, in the US foreign policy. Well, thank you. That was very helpful. I'll just make one point. You talked about democracy and governance and I do think we have to keep in mind we're so accustomed to speaking of Africa and Africa is 54 countries, as we know, and every country is going to have a different relationship. In some African regimes, I'll call them regimes because they're undemocratic and don't respect human rights, they're going to have a close affinity with Vladimir Putin. They are going to see eye to eye on democracy and so forth. Other governments will be much more, or should hopefully, democratic governments will have a different attitude towards engaging with Russia. So I know it's, we have to look at the broad brush, but I think the audience should keep in mind that there are different countries, every country is different, they all have different relationships, but Katrina, if we could hear from you some of your key points and then we'll open the conversation. Absolutely, and I actually, I love that I'm going right after my colleagues made that point because I think that one thing that I keep coming back to time and time again in doing research on Wagner and in how Russia has honed this model of using private military companies like Wagner to carry out its will abroad is the lack of viable alternatives. I think that we spend a lot of time focused on how do we disrupt Wagner, how do we try to cut off some parts of their network, especially looking at sanctions, ways of cutting off their smuggling and resource exploitation. But beyond that, I think there is this broader question of how do you offer a viable and sustained alternative to the countries that have turned to Wagner, paired with that sort of deeper understanding of the long-term impacts of Wagner's presence. And I think part of that also comes from working with other countries who are not quite at that point where they're reaching out to work with Wagner, who maybe are more democratic, who are aware of the risks and don't think it's worth it to bring in Wagner to their country, but then as a result, aren't necessarily watching everything that's unfolding in the countries where Wagner is operating. One thing that I find particularly concerning in a country like Mali, where you have a closed-off media environment, is just the difficulty in really getting transparency on what Wagner is doing in country. We have documentation by international NGOs of widespread human rights abuses, including things like the massacre at Mora that we saw in the spring of 2022, as well as just widespread indiscriminate killing of civilians and other human rights abuses. And the people in the country know that, but they can't talk about it. Media is controlled by the government. Those narratives can't get out. And I think that's a big opportunity, especially as we think about regional actors and whether other countries in the region or other regional actors, ways that they can reach out to civilian populations to spread this understanding and also pairing that with initiatives to engage civilian populations around issues of governance because there is currently that disconnect. On the broader scale, though, as we're looking at Wagner activities in these countries, I think that going forward and I'm thinking about this largely post-Progosians mutiny as we're thinking about what comes next for Wagner, I expect that we're going to see a bit of a struggle for what the control structure looks like. Progosian has built up this business empire whose weight really does lie in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in countries like the Central African Republic where it's become so heavily entrenched, not only in helping with training and combat operations, but everything from more or less running security operations in the country to running various bureaucratic functions of the government. In addition to these more security and governance-focused initiatives, Wagner is also deeply involved in mineral exploitation and other exploitation of natural resources, including timber, coffee, in addition to their most lucrative gold and diamond mining. And they have bought up a lot of space in the information media sphere as well, including buying local radio stations and various other forms of propaganda, payoffs to journalists and so forth. Progosian is facing the potential end of his business empire if control is rusted away from him. This is assuming that he survives long enough to maintain these interests at all. At the same time though, Wagner really has become the cornerstone of Russia's policy as it continues to spread its geopolitical influence in Africa and beyond, including in places like the Middle East and Latin America. And it would be very difficult at this stage for Russia to fully replace Wagner, to disentangle that network and then try to replace it with something else. That's partly because we don't see legitimate rivals that could take on the scale and scope of operations that Wagner currently has pursued, but also because Wagner has been in these places long enough to not only gain a reputation, but gain institutional knowledge, build relationships, and actually have some of those legal permits and other things that allows it to do the scale of operations that it's doing. One of its mining shell companies, Midas, has recently gained an industrial scale mining permit at the Nadashima Mine and potentially other locations in the Central African Republic. Per the mining code in the country, this gives them rights to do large-scale resource exploitation for 25 years with the possibility of extending that for five-year increments after that. Obviously this could be revoked or replaced at some point, but they've built this relationship. They have this structure in place. They've begun to expand open pit mining beyond just artisanal mining, and U.S. estimates have them up in the millions, potentially even over a billion dollars per year that they could exploit from these locations annually. That would be a lot to give up and try to rebuild. My expectation is that at the very least we'll see a continuation of the infrastructure that Wagner has built in these places. There may be a change in ownership or leadership. There may be some element of fragmentation, but I think that the core business model is unlikely to change. People ask a lot what is the future of Wagner as we're thinking about Russia's role in Africa, but I think that there are really two questions we need to grapple with there. One is what is the future of Wagner, and the other is what is the future of the Russian private military company model that Wagner has been following and really pioneering. Even though private military companies linked to Russia have long existed, have long operated in Africa, the time that Wagner has been there has really been a sea change toward using this as a more targeted and coordinated strategy to spread geopolitical influence, military and intelligence, power projection, and to secure economic and financial gain. That's unlikely to be going away. And so as we think about these policy solutions, ways to undermine what Russia is doing, what Wagner is doing in these countries, and ways to engage with local governments in Africa, both to offer viable alternatives, as we were just talking about, to what Wagner is doing, and also to really invest in good governance and opposing the root causes of instability to make these countries more resilient and less in need of Wagner. All of those needs are going to continue. The problem may have a different face, a different name, but I doubt that this strategy is going anywhere anytime soon. Thank you, and we do have to think about it in terms of alternative security measures. I think you put your finger on it, and Wagner is looking to displace the UN model of peacekeeping in West Africa, and hopefully we'll have a chance later on to think about Mozambique, because that's a country that Wagner did spectacularly, poorly. They were driven out of Cabo Delgado, they lost, I think, a dozen fighters, completely fled the country, and that's a country that traditionally Russia has had a strong relationship with, and in turn we saw a static intervention force come in along with Rwandans and bring a level of stability, because at the end of the day, there's a lot of stability, and we think that Wagner is fool's gold. It's not a lasting level of stability, but there is a desperate need for greater stability and greater peacekeeping models, particularly, and we have to think about the role of the U.S. Is the U.S. going to be engaged in being a key force for support of stability? But anyway, I want to pick up and follow up, Joe, if we could talk a little bit more about the upcoming Russia-Africa summit. It's been brought out that there's very little commercial developments between the Russia and Africa, and we all know China was really the country that pioneered the idea of the Africa summit, and so the focac goes back for 20 years, and that was very much led to the establishment of the Belt and Road and all the types of investment, Amica, that you've discussed, and the Africans really need to build their infrastructure. And so, again, just getting back, what do we think this is the second summit that Russia's held? The first was in 2019 in Sochi, a lot of African heads of state. I've seen a number of over 40 potential will be in St. Petersburg next week. What do we think is going to be discussed? Any surprises? Frankly, I'm a little surprised that it's being held just given that Wagner was 150 miles south of Moscow only a month ago, but I would imagine Putin is craving a project, a degree of norm or an image of normalcy and wants to continue this, continue. But that's a lot of heads of state coming a long way to meet with Vladimir Putin when there's not that much commercial benefit on the table. Joe, I think you mentioned there were a lot of promises last time, but not a lot delivered. What do we think about the summit? Well, I think the main value for Russia is that it's happening. And it is mostly going to be symbolic in terms of its value. It is an important time now for Russia to convey that there's business as usual, in addition to the recent mutiny. Russia has been isolated since its invasion, its larger invasion of Ukraine, and so a big part of its strategy has been to show that it continues to be welcome, that it continues to have friends. That's one of the reasons that Africa has become so much more important to Russia over the past year. Let's not forget, too, that Vladimir Putin has been issued an arrest warrant for war crimes in the past year. And so even his travel around the world now is at risk. So by being able to bring in, you know, 40-plus African heads of states, that's a huge coup for Russia. It suggests that, you know, that Russia's behavior is normal, that it is, in fact, being implicitly endorsed by these African heads of state. So from a posturing standpoint, it accomplishes a lot for Russia. I think the benefits for African heads of state are much more murky. As alluded to earlier, you know, a number of these leaders rely on Russian political support, and so they, you know, they have benefits in maintaining that relationship. You know, a majority of African governments now are authoritarian-leaning, and so the normalization of authoritarianism is not a problem for them. But again, there's a variance of interest there. I think some African leaders genuinely are committed to philosophy of non-alignment, and they want to keep doors open. Others, I think, believe in constructive engagement and want to maintain an open dialogue with Russia. So I think there's a host of factors involved. We can't label all African countries in the same way. But really, I think the bottom line is it's a win for Russia. It sure looks that way. Amika, you've done some writing and research on the impact of the Ukraine, Putin's aggression against Ukraine invasion, brutal invasion, on Africa. And we all recognize that the negative impact has been across the board, whether it be fuel or food prices. And just this week, we saw the Black Sea grain deal. Russia pulled back from that. So the implications are pretty severe, and yet Africans seem a little tentative to really condemn Russia. And we saw that with the UN vote, in which half of African countries either abstained or didn't vote, or we had one country actually support Russia. So what are your thinking in terms of how Africans view Russia and the Ukraine war and the impact on the continent? So let me just say a few things about the summit. Please do. I'm one of those people who thinks all the summits are symbolic. Any Africa anything summit is always symbolic. Africa, U.S., Africa, China, Africa, whatever. Then why do they all show up? Good question, because they're at the bottom of the food chain. But for Russia, just like it is for the U.S. and China, it's about projected influence. So I think, but why do they go? Obviously, they'll go to the U.S. Africa summit because it's the U.S., like lead out of the free world. You don't want to piss them off. For Russia, I think it's a mix of things. I don't agree. I think most majority of African governments, at least the ones that matter, where most Africans live, South Africa, Angola, Nigeria, they're not authoritarian. And I don't think that that's kind of an attractive model at all. Even if you poll Africans, most Africans want to live in a democracy and that's where the continent is headed. It's actually pretty entrenched, I think, right now. The outliers, the places where we're seeing a regression are small, they're outliers, and they're frankly just not that important even in African geopolitics, right? Burkina Faso, Mali, right? I'm sorry. C-A-R, I'm not sure where you're from. But these are relatively smaller countries, right? So I don't think that's like the driver, really, you know, attraction to the model. I think it's about not wanting to close any doors. I think it's about China. China is an important factor. Don't underestimate China, right? China is an important partner for many countries, regardless of their size. And so you don't want a piece of China, okay? And I think it's hard. Don't also underestimate the small arms. A lot of these countries are facing serious security challenges and it's extremely expensive to buy arms from the U.S. or any industrialized country. And low-cost effective arms, Russia does that well, right? And so often a lot of what comes out of these deals is like security arms deals. We also have standards on our arms sales. We demand certain protections and human rights provisions and so forth and obviously Russia is indifferent to those. And there's also just the reality. So back to your question about what sort of informant the more lukewarm reaction on the African continent about the Ukraine war. It's a mix of things, right? But I think one of the things is this, most African countries condemn the invasion, but they still don't want, they don't like the moral high ground. This idea of like, you're either with us or against us and like this is this moral kind of fight for democracy and whatever. That's what people cringe at, right? That's what people don't like. Because let me remember, look, most of this, when we talk about, we forget sometimes that a lot of the security challenges that it's a hell is facing was caused in part by the bombing of Libya, right? Which nobody consulted, a lot of African states would say, nobody consulted us on that, right? This is the challenge that we're facing. But you want us to like jump up and like, you know, fight your war and this moral. So I think it's really more about the most African countries, if you're at the bottom of the food chain, the worst thing you want is some precedent that anybody can go and invade some poorer country, right? So at least on principle, people condemn that. But I think it's the, you know, it's the idea that like we, this is like a moral conscience thing and like it's black and white and we must of course, you know, be clear and, you know, I think that's what people, people cringe at. So that's why it's a little bit mixed. Thank you. Any other thoughts before we move on to the summit or on the summit or the Ukraine war? Yeah, I absolutely agree with those points. I think especially for a U.S. audience, I think we will need to be careful as we're talking about the summit as it unfolds next week to not basically have a repeat of the conversation following the U.N. vote, where suddenly there very much was, okay, which country is on whose team? Who's on the U.S. team? Who didn't vote with us? Why not? Why are they rejecting the West? And really understanding that they want to be their own independent actors, that attending the summit is not an implicit endorsement of Russia and everything that Russia is doing. It is simply this will to autonomy and the ability to participate as a player on the international stage. So I think that's an important piece of it to understand going in. And I think as well, some of the messaging here, you know, we talked about the messaging from Russia for its place on the global stage right now, that symbolism, I think there's also a big piece of reassurance to African partners. Following Pryoshin's mutiny, there was a lot of uncertainty, especially in the countries that are most deeply reliant on Wagner for these services, places like the Central African Republic and Mali, a lot of uncertainty about what the future of Russian assistance to their regime would be, you know, who they even should be talking to about this. And I think that beyond simply put in sense of projecting normalcy and power in general, after some of his weaknesses were exposed, this is a chance as well to reassure those African partners that no matter what that assistance looks like, it's not going away from Russia anytime soon. Great, thank you. One of the issues that I think is absolutely just key to our thinking about Russia is the media manipulation. Joe, you mentioned that. Just the intense effort that Russia makes to manipulate media, manipulate public opinion. I was reading they've attacked Irish peacekeepers. They certainly attack the French and all types of efforts. I think we're very concerned about what's going to happen in South Africa with elections upcoming. And it's not unique to Africa. Obviously we know that Russia is engaged in these activities all over the world as is China, but it does make for a very tricky climate when we're continuously trying to deal with misinformation and manipulation. So how bad is it and what, if anything, can we do about it? Well, it is fairly extensive and our center has done a map of disinformation in Africa. There are some 50 different reported campaigns, disinformation campaigns on the continent. Russia is behind 17 of them, so it's more than any other entity, domestic or foreign. So it's very much part of Russia's toolkit for gaining influence to push out its narratives about what's going on and again to help prop up individual leaders and authoritarian regimes that provide Russia an entry point and lack of accountability on the continent. In terms of what can be done about it, of course disinformation is a problem around the world. I think it's particularly effective and challenging in Africa because Africa is such a permissive environment. Africa doesn't have a well developed media environment. There aren't a lot of trusted media platforms and so there's a lot of confusion about what's true, what's not true, how do you discern that? The last few years we've seen a surge of young Africans coming online getting information from digital sources so there's a huge mix and shift in the way information is being transmitted and without a lot of filters. So I think really trying to counter disinformation it's about building African capacity to identify disinformation, to call it out to do the fact checking to strengthen African journalism and media centers. It's about helping to build independent media in Africa as well so that they're not easily co-opted and politicized. Do we have are we making those efforts or I couldn't agree with you more it's important to support local journalism but it seems it's so much easier to damage and upend than it is to build those antibodies to this propaganda. I think it goes to the point about Russia is really getting a lot of bang for its buck by just disrupting it's always easier to disrupt than build and I hope when I say we I hope the U.S. has that objective in mind and has the resources and the time to engage to that otherwise we're in a lot of trouble I think in African terms of human rights and democracy but Yeah, I think that there certainly are some efforts underway I think they certainly could be expanded we could be doing more particularly to support local journalism and particularly thinking about the ways that people receive information in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa so this is largely through local radio through social media and I think part of it too is understanding how to go about combating disinformation in a culturally different environment. We're very good at kind of going through all of those big buzzwords and concepts in the United States for how to debunk disinformation but we've seen even within our own country that's very hard to do. Once a lie is out there it's really hard to catch up to it. There are psychological studies even looking at the biases that people go through once you've seen that something is debunked you'll still have that gut emotional response to something because the lie is usually much more incendiary than the truth. When the lie is some big conspiracy theory and then the truth is just know that didn't happen that was just a Tuesday which one's going to stick with you more. So part of it then too is dealing with the fact that this is always a tricky subject to engage in and then bringing that to a completely different cultural context. I've heard from talking to people on the ground particularly in West Africa that often times when there are sort of these disinformation counter-disinformation engagements they end up being very much the standard presentation from people working in the tech world in the US or in Europe who come in and just run through what the procedures are for trying to debunk false narratives and all of that in the US context and they have no idea how to engage with radio how to engage with what happens when okay you can take something down when it's been put on Facebook but what happens when a bunch of people have taken a screenshot of that and then shared it with all of their WhatsApp groups. There's just a very different understanding of how you get at the root of those issues. I think that two other quick pieces to address on this are number one the way that we talk about the disinformation itself often times Russia is exploiting legitimate sentiment or is basing their narratives around things that have truly happened we see this a lot with the anti-French sentiment that has really been fanned by Russia in recent years but you can't just go in and say oh Russia's come forward with this disinformation campaign claiming that the French were terrible because with all due respect to our French allies the French have a really difficult history in much of Africa both during the colonial period and in the legacy of colonialism including with what have been perceived as neocolonial policies and actions in recent years not to mention the failures of things like Operation Barkhan and Mali where you just see no movement on dealing with security threats that are impacting populations and so some of it has to be recognizing where there are legitimate grievances and not simply lies and then the other piece of it is that when we're countering disinformation as much as it may be tempting to just throw out your own influence campaign to try to convince everyone of just how bad Russia is you can't stoop to that level you can't be dragged into this place where then when you say that Russia is bad for using disinformation and all of these nefarious influence campaigns someone can point to you and say but you just did the same thing I think we saw a big mistake here with the French and the Central African Republic a few years ago when Facebook reported at the same time that they took down competing influence campaigns at the same time linked to France and Russia respectively interestingly these campaigns were largely engaging with each other rather than even with authentic accounts of people living in the Central African Republic but it was I think a big embarrassment for the French that it was tied back to and a big blow to Western credibility at large in terms of arguing that we're centering truth and transparency and democracy when we can be seen playing the same games as Russia so I think that just the last caution to add in is that even when it might feel like a shortcut to take those same methods that Russia is using I think that we still do need to maintain that focus on truth and transparency if that's what we're going to be preaching Thank you and just underscore that Russia broadcasts in local languages which is really powerful and we do have a good online audience and we had someone call in and make the point that RT has established a physical office in South Africa and so they Russia is really doubling down on this information that's a good question I just wanted to add on the so I will say my view I think the most effective Russian information campaign has been the anti-French sort of stoking in West Africa it's obviously capitalized on existing grievances in a long history I am less worried about Russia meddling in domestic politics in most African countries in most cases there's nothing for them to gain I mean what are you what difference does it make if APC in Nigeria the ruling party wins over the PDP to Russia I just don't see that being like a big I don't see there being a big gain one way or the other maybe somebody can weigh in on that if you have a view especially so in South Africa since you mentioned South Africa specifically and this is something the opposition has been pushing I am actually more concerned about Russia influencing the American election in 2024 than about the South African election here's why a couple of things too one thing is the party the political party that Russians that is closest to Russia which is Zuma's the political faction which is basically Zuma's sort of radical economic transformation within the ANC or the EFF because this radical party in South Africa has no chance of winning the election the ANC is going to win the election the only question is are they going to win a majority or are they going to have to be in a coalition and so what are you going to influence are you going to influence the same party that you're supporting to lose so that they'll end up in a coalition party that you're supporting it doesn't seem like one way or the other it makes a big difference but I think what's even more important is that South Africa has much stricter rules about what gets broadcast and I have much stricter rules about freedom of speech and incitement and so most South Africans from their perspective were shocked that like fox could get away with some of the stuff it broadcasted and some of the things it says so in that sense, this is what I mean by when I say I'm less worried because what you do if you're Russia, what you do is you stoke all of those existing identity politics and grievances that then gets Tocca Carson on Fox saying things that reaches more people I think they're doing this all over I think they're doing it in the US I think they're doing it in Africa I have a little more concern about what's going on in South Africa Disinformation is bad for democracy whether it's Joe Yeah, and just jumping quickly on that I am also concerned but I think one of the tactics is to use it as inter-party competition and broil the polarizing issues in a country and then try to weaponize that and so in South Africa as you're suggesting part of the disinformation is to play the factions of ANC against each other Russian, yeah, and supporting the Zuma faction versus the Remopoza faction it's also playing up racial politics so highlighting differences in society and talking about the grievances from one side or the other we see this in Sudan where Russia has used disinformation to try to play the two military leaders against each other for the most part supporting Hometi in Libya even where Russia has long been supporting the warlord Khalifa Haftar now that they've created a foothold there they're using disinformation to play the political field and try to advance their interest and shifting away from him sometimes so I think it's a real concern for Africa and African political leaders that it may seem benign they may seem like well disinformation is helping me but once it starts then it won't necessarily stop there and it could be used against you so to reinforce, can I just say the way I would frame my concern is that a lot of people especially in South Africa are losing faith in democracy so that's where the concern is which is it's almost 30 years from the advent of multiracial democracy a lot of people are saying I'm still poor South Africa hasn't grown and so the risk is that you reinforce disenchantment from democracy which then leads to a bigger shift to authoritarian rule and I think this goes to and I wrote a whole piece with this goes to my view we need to the biggest challenge to democracy today in Africa is lack of state capacity the biggest challenge to democracy today in Africa, in most African countries is the fact that governments are not delivering on public services and so if we don't fix that we can't fix anything else I appreciate that, I think we're going to move on from the disinformation but I do think we can agree that Russia is not part of the solution there in terms of building faith in democracy in South Africa, so I just wanted to get back for a second back to the Wagner group and it's been suggested in terms of what their future is very much in flux, we don't know where Progosian is, we don't know the future of the Wagner group but we do know or at least it's been suggested that the Wagner brand has suffered in some regard in terms of just the turmoil and the odd relationship with the Russian state do we have any thoughts on just how Africans perceive it maybe they don't, maybe it's just it was an event that moves on it's irrelevant to whether or not Wagner will be in their country but any thoughts on the image of a mercenary group the Wagner group you're asking Joe I think Katrina did a nice job laying the groundwork for Wagner earlier and how it's sort of conglomerate I would just say I think that view is changing I think initially Wagner was seen as just any other security outfit and it would help on security and therefore why not I think as time has moved on and there's more and more reports of human rights abuses that's changing in the places where the paramilitaries have been active Mali, Central African Republic Libya, there's a deep fear of Wagner communities where Wagner has set up have been forced to flee and even senior officials who speak out against Wagner have been intimidated so I think that is shifting I think on the continent in fact there's a recognition that Wagner is not effective on a security front in both Mali and Burkina Faso the security situations have deteriorated rapidly since Wagner has been deployed and so even as a security tool it's not effective as I said earlier Wagner is really a political tool to help keep these regimes in power and for that I think it's been successful but from a security standpoint it isn't it hasn't been and so I think that realization is being absorbed across the continent so I think it's shifting I would just add along with that certainly we've seen very mixed success in Wagner's operations but I think along with that it's not just looking at their failures things like Mozambique as we mentioned before their outright combat failures and ultimately being replaced but really what their motivations are so unlike a traditional contractor who would come in and really be focused on fulfilling the terms of its contract in exchange for whatever payment it's receiving Wagner is first and foremost interested in its own gain and the gains of the Russian government it doesn't want to actually resolve the security situation in any of these countries because if it magically is able to get rid of the jihadist threat or the rebel threat whatever security situation the country is facing and then that puts itself out of a job it doesn't have that element of dependence anymore essentially what Wagner tries to do is walk that line so that it does its job well enough to not be fired like it was in Mozambique but poorly enough to continue to be needed and I think over time that's going to become more apparent for a lot of these regimes Wagner really does form this sort of coup-proofing function so in places like the Central African Republic or Mali the regime also frankly isn't that focused on actually resolving the security threats securing the population they want to secure their own longevity especially if you're a military junta in a place like Mali and you've just gained power through illegitimate means you are very aware of how easy that is to do and you want some reassurance of your own security but over time if we continue to see Wagner falter if we continue to see failures that also starts to become an existential threat to those regimes it's not just the question then of can Wagner fulfill the alleged terms of the security agreement and fix the civil war in our country or the jihadist threat, insurgent threat whatever the case may be it then becomes can we actually rely on Wagner to protect our regime I think that's what the uncertainty around the mutiny sort of started to hit at for the first time with some of these regimes questioning what what is the future of Wagner could this dissolve overnight could we then be working with someone else is there uncertainty here is this a sign of weakness for us that someone could exploit when I say us I mean the regime not the state security in general and so I think that that was maybe a bit of a turning point in shaking some of that confidence as I mentioned before I think that the Russia Africa summit will serve in part to try to reassure those governments try to you know soften the blow give them reassurance that even if it's not Wagner someone will be there to take care of them but I think that there is kind of a growing question mark on the efficacy for the regimes that are hosting Wagner the bigger problem maybe is that we really can't get a good sense of civilian attitudes toward Wagner and perceptions we can make some assumptions based on what they're doing in these countries but the civilians especially in a place like Mali are basically either the ones that are in the north and the central of the country where Wagner is chiefly operating can't speak out against Wagner because of the crackdown by the government on anyone who does speak out against Wagner and against the million armed forces and people in the southern part of the country or even outside of Mali just aren't well informed about what's actually happening on the ground because no one can speak out internally about the massacres about the human rights abuses and I think that's where we come back to that information question of how do you get genuine information about what's happening out to the wider population. I think that's a good point that you make just in terms of Wagner benefits from some of the chaos now a lot of that chaos came from jihadists came from as been mentioned earlier Libya there's a whole other host of reasons fundamental problems we have instability but Wagner is a little bit like the arsonist throwing a match on the fire and then coming in and say we can fix things but what we did have a posting or one of our listeners asked about and I think the very important point what are the alternatives so if Wagner's not part of the solution we've seen the UN flounder in many countries we've seen the French retreat from West Africa to some extent what are the models because Russia is certainly not going to support a different model I don't know that China would support a different model so unfortunately we have so many countries in Africa suffering very concerning security situations particularly in West Africa what is a realistic substitute for the Wagner group Can I jump in like this? Please do. So I think as my colleagues here were already saying I think very eloquently Wagner's role in West Africa hasn't really been for public security it's been for regime security they're there to protect the people who have taken power often undemocratically so I don't think the solution I don't think the alternative is a different military option I think the alternative is you know created I know it's hard it's not an easy it's not something that anybody else can do but the alternative is having sort of a responsive government that then doesn't need Wagner to protect them from another coup the alternative is sort of focusing on like how do you bring sort of jobs and create jobs and bring prosperity so that you can reduce the risk of militancy I know it's not a satisfying answer but I don't think having a different military option changes the scenario at all that's just my view I think absolutely economic development is critical to building peace and stability I do think you need a security element there are elements in West Africa throughout the continent who are going to try to loot and attack and that's the way it's been for a long time and so I think we need both to think we can only have economic development and not some of these aggressive forces without a security element I think Nigeria needs a strong military a military that performs well that abides by human rights but certainly a military presence in northern Nigeria is absolutely essential at least in my mind to peace and stability Joe sure thanks and I agree it's a really complex subject they may we need to have another panel just on this but I think briefly and I think what I heard Amaka saying is that the core of successful counterinsurgency is a strong government a democratic legitimate government and that's been shown sort of in a study of all counterinsurgencies by that you know that these are often long slogs it's going to be 6 to 10 years of trying to grind this out and you're going to need a government that cares about its people, it's investing in its people, it's not corrupt it's trying to provide services and that can create some sort of strategy that's going to be inclusive and and ultimately stabilize the country and so it starts with governance that you know there needs to be a dialogue a more participatory inclusive dialogue in Mali and Burkina Faso so that we can move past these juntas that are very exclusive in self-serving and involve more political actors create a genuine transitional government and then engage more of the regional and international actors you know the irony in Mali has been while the out-of-threat has been escalating the junta at the behest of Wagner and Russia has been pushing away security partners including most recently with Minusma so it's there's a real unstrategic dynamic happening there but I don't think the either of the Mali government or Burkina Faso government on their own are going to be able to deal with this and so we are looking at regional solutions and I think you know in both cases you know there's a real a very real threat of state collapse and so it's a serious issue that's going to need to be put out there and dealt with okay if I could just add quickly too I think you know completely agree that we need this pairing of that real investment in good governance and economic development of civil society alongside the security element I would also just add on you know to this point that that engagement might take you know up to 10 years potentially more this long slog of going through and building all of this I would just say that then that process that engagement needs to for lack of a better word be engaged it needs to be responsive it needs to be a dialogue back and forth and it needs to basically not do what things like operation bar con did which was to drag out over a decade but really kind of stagnate with nothing to show for it and leave the million government and military looking for something new to try to be able to say okay we keep doing this over this past decade and nothing has changed it needs to be not only that sort of wrap around multi sector engagement but it needs to have these checkpoints of what is working what isn't working and not be afraid to deviate to try new things to include local partners in civil society in those conversations and I think particularly sort of depending on which partners are involved I think there needs to be a real good faith reckoning with these different western governments history in Africa whether it's the French colonial history whether it's the challenges around showing just sustained and reliable US interest on the continent at the same time that we're often projecting sort of either lower interests there from the US than in other regions or simply you know a lack of continuity between administrations in the US there needs to be some reflection and some engagement around those traditional concerns about working with the West because otherwise that's going to continue to be the elephant in the room okay great we're going to wrap up here we're going to go down the line each of you speakers and thank you you've all done a wonderful job one minute I'd like to address two questions one Joe had mentioned just to kick off that the Russian strategy was winning did you agree that the Russian strategy is winning I know you do Joe but also I'd like one point that you feel in terms of US policy makers if you would emphasize we should be paying more attention to to X what X would be so one minute Katrina you're up oh boy I think that the Russian strategy has been winning but I think that it's not sustainable in the long term and I think that at this point it's been winning because no one else is presenting those viable alternatives that we talked about earlier on and I think that if we can seize some opportunities that were presented which will be the second half of my hopefully only a minute here then that Russian success doesn't have to continue into the long term and so then to a US policy maker I would say that right now we're in a tremendous moment of transition potentially for the Wagner Group for Russia's use of private military companies whether that's in the structure of Wagner or how they're conceiving of this model going forward when presumably they don't want a single company headed by a single powerful individual to have a monopoly over this space it's a time of transition and all of the questions that we have when we look to the future of Wagner countries in Africa and in other regions where they've been active also have those questions now there are a tremendous amount of opportunities for us within that uncertainty and it would be a mistake to miss acting on them thank you Joe I think what I would say to US policy makers is that let's not forget that the US has a long and rich and robust history of engagement in Africa and it's many fold more significant than what Russia does so let's not define US strategy by countering what Russia does let's think about what we want to do and what we have been doing why we want to do it what are our strategic partnerships you know the premise of our policy is that US interest are overlapping with African interest well let's elevate that, let's identify that and work with the countries that share those values and interest and try to advance them thank you you're the deciding factor we have winning I don't think Russia's strategy is winning I don't think Russia is that relevant I think it's overstated I don't think people care that much in Africa about Russia I think even Wagner's presence is really more for the undemocratic hunters than for public security I don't think Russia's strategy is winning and I think it's losing influence frankly but I think that my comments to the US policy because we're very much in line with what Joe was saying which is the US is right now is too obsessed with countering the other the China, the Russia when the US has by far the most cultural by far the most soft power in the region people want to live in the US not in Russia increasingly more people are going to live in China yes people want to live in a US society so I think the challenge for the US is to pair that with real economic influence as well and to do that US policy makers need to convince American business that African economic transformation is in America's interest until you do that the rhetoric won't land we have to be convinced as African policy makers need to be convinced that actually Americans see African economic transformation as in their interest not just projecting power to diminish some other power that's it great well thank you very much we could go on and on but I think we identified some key issues and we'll be watching the Russia Africa summit next week and see what comes out of that but I want to thank our audience everyone who came out here to USIP and observed our online audience as well so with that we'll wrap up and again everyone have a good day and thank you thank you