Russia Leveraging Africa’s Media and Diplomacy -By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh

Moscow’s decision to increase its diplomatic representative offices has been interpreted as a continued commitment for strengthening cooperation in the African continent. It opens the next cycle for maintaining friendship and advancing ambition for working together with African countries.

Given the consideration that Africa has become the important center for external players, Moscow is actively moving forward with plans to open embassies in Gambia, Liberia, Togo, and the Comoros Islands, according to Tatyana Dovgalenko, head of the Foreign Ministry’s Department for Partnership with Africa.

“We are broadening our diplomatic presence on the continent: in 2024, our embassies started operations in Burkina Faso and Equatorial Guinea. This year, we are opening embassies in South Sudan, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, while Gambia, Liberia, Togo, and the Comoros Islands are next on the agenda,” she stated when addressing a group of African media representatives who had arrived on a short working press tour in mid-November.

Dovgalenko also noted that trade turnover with African countries is growing dynamically, reaching double-digit growth, and amounted to $27 billion in 2024. “But this is far from the limit. A key priority now is to expand the material foundation of our cooperation. We welcome various projects with African partners,” the diplomat emphasized.

Andrey Kondrashov, director general of Russia’s state-owned news agency TASS, in conversation with the group, announced the opening of state media representations across Africa, emphasizing this plan as “strategic media development” within the current geopolitical context.

“In the near future, we are planning to open news bureaus in Angola, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Madagascar,” Kondrashov said at a news conference devoted for reporters with African news agencies titled, TASS-Africa: The Way of Friendship, that attracted the African group to Moscow. The Russia state news agency, currently, has offices in Egypt, Tunisia, Kenya, Morocco, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Professor Irina Abramova, director of the Africa Studies Institute, at the gathering, noted in her contribution, that Russian officials have consistently complained of anti-Russian propaganda perpetuated by western media. And even in changing geopolitical conditions, particularly with emerging multipolar environment, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has highly discriminated against accrediting African media and African journalists to work in the Russian Federation.

“Information today has become a powerful productive force, capable of shaping objective reality. In these conditions, the role of journalists is extremely important, because the nature of Russian-African relations—whether they will be built on truth or lies—depends on how a given fact is presented,” said Professor Abramova, with media establishing its presence in Russia but there is absolutely no African news agency and no African reporters have permanent accreditation in the country.

She noted that African countries remember the USSR’s contribution to the collapse of the colonial system, yet new forms of colonialism, including informational ones, continue to emerge to this day. Under these circumstances, it is especially important for African states to strengthen their sovereignty. Concluding her speech, Professor Abramova called on African media to more actively establish their presence in Russia, recalling that currently not a single agency has permanent accreditation in the country.

The organized African press tour, first in the series since Soviet’s collapse in 1991, designed and titled as “Russia-Africa: The Way of Friendship and Cooperation,” for journalists from African news agencies, took place from November 16 to 24 in Moscow, Kazan, and St. Petersburg.
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