Other Russian schemes were more sinister. In the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, some 600 miles east of Moscow, sits a hub for the assembly of Iranian-origin drones used to pummel Ukraine. Central to the effort is a pseudovocational program that has targeted young African women to work there, with administrators making false promises of career advancement and a life filled with love and marriage. Sprawled across social media platforms, the recruitment spree represented just a tiny fragment of Moscow’s information campaigns in Africa, which scored points by framing Russia as an antidote to the “neocolonial” West.
In Vienna and New York, I witnessed the loftier forms of Russia’s power plays. At the United Nations, Russian diplomats worked hard to corral non-Western countries to support their positions, including on the war in Ukraine. Russian diplomats also used newer formats to woo friends. Chairing the BRICS alliance in 2024, the Kremlin impressed its partners with hundreds of events, among them a fashion show, a sports tournament and a grand summit in the city of Kazan. A formidable host, Russia made clear that it would not be isolated.
In South Africa, there was little need for persuasion. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the African National Congress — the country’s dominant political force, which led the fight against apartheid — blamed Western nations for the war. Meeting with A.N.C. veterans, I saw how gratitude for Soviet support during the anti-apartheid struggle combined with antipathy toward a West that, to them, appeared both hypocritical and hyperdominant. The result was a reflexively pro-Russia stance that tended to dismiss Ukraine’s distinct identity and agency.
I also met individuals whose affinity for Russia was more idiosyncratic. The journalist Paula Slier grew up in an affluent Johannesburg suburb in the 1980s, immune to the kind of pro-Russian sentiment that the A.N.C. underground cultivated. After joining Russia Today, a state-funded news channel, on a whim in 2005, she slowly internalized its news culture. Even as the channel’s propaganda grew shriller over the years, Ms. Slier continued to consider her work necessary and right. In the global information war, she told me, Russia was the “underdog.”
Others have aligned with Russia more out of self-interest than affection. In Georgia, the ruling party, Georgian Dream, followed Russia’s lead in cracking down on civil society. Ahead of parliamentary elections in October 2024, Georgian Dream warned that the “global war party” — its political opponents and their Western supporters — sought to drag Georgia into conflict with Russia, as had happened in Ukraine. Georgian Dream’s goal was simple: to entrench the party’s own hold on power. In the process, it advanced Mr. Putin’s agenda of discrediting Western-style democracy and building up fellow travelers in the region.
