Abstract
After an abrupt disengagement following the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia stepped up its presence in Africa in the late 2000s. In October 2019, the Sochi summit materialized this comeback. Its main markers are, on the one hand, official military-technical cooperation and, on the other hand, the rising role of the Wagner Group, a private military company presumably sponsored by the Russian businessman and 'entrepreneur of influence' Evgeny Prigozhin. In parallel, the footprint of Moscow's information influence has expanded and diversified in the areas where these actors have settled in, mostly for the purpose of legitimizing the Russian presence and disparaging the interventionism of Western actors. While the Central African Republic is the country where this influence has penetrated the most, Mali deserves particular attention as this Sahelian country has become a potential area of significant information conflict between France and Russia: Mali is the main theatre of the ongoing French operation Barkhane and the European Takuba Task Force, and the Wagner Group has been deploying there since December 2021, after the announcement of a partial withdrawal of the French military from the Sahel region. This paper explores the way in which the French-speaking branches of RT and Sputnik, the two state-funded networks of Russia's controversial mediated public diplomacy, have covered the news in Mali since the end of 2020. Using lexicometric analysis (IRaMuTeQ), it examines the contents published by RT and Sputnik on their websites, emphasizing the narratives they promote and the value judgements and rhetorical devices they rely on while covering the French and Russian presences in the country. The findings are discussed in light of the security challenges raised by new forms of information warfare in Europe and Africa.
Panel: Foreign Information Influence as an (Inter)National Security Threat