Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (@mfa_russia) on X, July 25 2022 — Lavrov arrives in the Republic of the Congo.
Embassy of the Russian Federation in Guinea (@RussieConakry) on X — Lavrov arrives on an official visit to Conakry.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (@mfa_russia) on X — Lavrov arrives in Ouagadougou and meets Burkina Faso’s foreign minister.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (December 19 2025 — Lavrov and Egypt’s FM hold talks on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum.
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social media amplification to raise support for Russia and the regimes it supports. In some cases, this has made leaders like Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traore into social media superstars, by “endowing him with impeccable American English and a power of persuasion far exceeding his own.” [31] Other Russian uses of the information instrument include the establishment of “Pushkin Institutes” in Africa and providing free education for thousands of Africans per year. Pushkin Institutes promote Russian language and culture abroad, and Moscow now operates them in 22 of the 54 African countries, up from only three prior to the full- scale invasion of Ukraine. Its offer of free education has likewise risen sharply in the past several years: some 35,000 Africans now study in Russia free of charge. For the current academic year, applicants for these positions rose from 20,000 to 40,000, with Sudan, Guinea, Ghana, and Chad seeing the sharpest increases. Moscow’s military presence in Africa is unconventional and sometimes unacknowledged, but still substantial. Russia maintains no military bases in Africa - although it has been in on again/off again talks with Sudan on the topic for years - and the Russian military is not a major player on the continent. But Moscow uses the military instrument extensively in Africa, in the form of its Africa Corps contingent, which is not formally a part of the Russian military but reliably does the Kremlin’s bidding. In fact, squaring the deniability/control circle was a main reason for the creation of the Africa Corps. For years, Kremlin leaders were comfortable granting the Wagner Group extensive autonomy, for two reasons. First, it allowed the Russian government to deny involvement in the Group’s more heinous activities by claiming it was a private entity. Second, Putin and those around him were confident Putin’s close personal relationship to the Group’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin would keep it under control. [32]
// RUSSIA AND CHINA IN AFRICA Delphi Global Research Center
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