Unstoppable Lavrov goes on yet another African tour
Another week, another Africa tour for Russia’s unstoppable Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Last week it was South Africa, this week he is in Sudan, after dropping in on Mali and Mauritania. He is visiting the Sudanese capital Khartoum at the same time as far lower ranking envoys from the U.S., France, Norway, Britain and the EU arrive to help Sudan push forward a long, ongoing transition to democracy. Lavrov, who in the past has spoken against meddling in Sudanese affairs, has arrived to discuss “investments and bilateral relations” instead with his counterparts in the military government, according to the Russian MFA. The timing of Lavrov’s visit is telling. It comes just as the U.S. is intensifying its efforts to get governments in the Middle East to push out Wagner, a paramilitary group owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch with close ties to President Vladimir Putin. Wagner is active in Africa, including Sudan. Lavrov was in Mali today where the Wagner Group, according to rights organizations, including the U.N. Working Group on Mercenaries, has created a “climate of terror and complete impunity.”
Before jetting over to Africa, Lavrov was in Iraq. The United States’ war in Iraq has long provided fertile ground for the global spread of Russia’s anti-American messaging. The fact that no one has ever been held accountable for the U.S. invasion has fuelled endless whataboutery, lending a degree of legitimacy to Russia’s complex disinformation campaign against the West. This week, as Russian rockets continued to fall on Ukraine, it was striking to listen to Lavrov speaking in Baghdad and using the American invasion that was “based on lies” as a pretext to justify Russia’s military campaign. Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to Lavrov, is a struggle to liberate Russian speakers in Ukraine. While omitting the fact that it was Moscow that launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine, he accused the West of standing in the path of peace by constantly looking for excuses to continue arming Ukraine.
It’s a foolproof disinformation recipe: select a couple of facts, sprinkle them with lies, add empathy and twist the whole lot into a narrative that sows doubt in the truth. No one can do this more convincingly than Russia’s 72-year-old foreign minister. “Our Western colleagues are determined to squash any sign of dissent in the global arena,” Lavrov said at a press conference in Baghdad. He found an attentive audience in Iraq, as he has in Africa. Lavrov’s relentless soft power campaigning is clearly gaining traction.
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