Finland has never been so close to joining NATO. Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and Prime Minister Sanna Marin said they were in favor, Thursday, May 12, of joining “without delay” to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Finland seeks to protect itself from Russia, from a military offensive but also from its influences. Others seek to guard against it. Direction Catalonia and Ivory Coast.
In Catalonia, Russia’s offer to the separatists
In Catalonia, in the northeast of Spain, Russia has long tried to destabilize the European Union. This is what she tried to do by supporting the Catalan separatists in 2017. Shortly after the illegal referendum in October 2017, and on the eve of a declaration of independence without a future, a former Russian diplomat, presented as a emissary of Vladimir Putin, was received by Carles Puigdemont, then President of Catalonia. The man in question is called Nikolay Sadovnikov, and offers Russian aid to the Catalan separatists. According to the investigations of an international consortium of journalists, he would have offered 10,000 soldiers and 500 billion euros to allow the future Catalan Republic to take off. In exchange, Russia would have demanded favorable legislation for cryptocurrencies in a Catalan Republic.
“Russia’s intention was to push Carles Puigdemont to go forward and break with Spainexplains Antonio Baquero, one of the journalists who revealed the information. Afterwards, were the soldiers and the money real? We will never know… But what we can know is that at that time, someone very close to Putin himself came here and said to the Calatans ‘go go- y, Russia will support you.'”
Moscow has no particular interest in Catalonia, but helping the secession of a territory in the heart of Europe is to participate in the destabilization of the continent. For their part, the Catalan separatists desperately sought recognition abroad. Carles Puigdemont acknowledged the existence of this meeting, “but the Russian offer was refused”, we explain. For Joan Canadell, deputy and close to the former Catalan president, there is no scandal. “In 2017, everyone had good relations with Putin, in Europe, in the United States and everywherehe says. And so talking today in the current context, of a meeting that took place in 2017, is really a low blow! That being said, in the context of the time, when we wanted to proclaim the Republic, the slightest support for our cause had to at least be taken into account and listened to!
Other secret meetings took place in Barcelona, Moscow or Geneva until 2019 between Russian emissaries and Catalan separatists. Today, these revelations embarrass Barcelona. The left-wing separatists distanced themselves from it. “Flirting with Russia does our cause no good”said the spokeswoman for the independence left
In Ivory Coast, an anti-French feeling fueled by the Kremlin
In Africa too, Russia is trying to expand its sphere of influence, especially in West Africa. For several years, it has been shown, demonstrated that Russian entities have created sites, facebook groups, robots to flood the web with pro-Russian, pro-Putin, anti-Western messages. Not to mention the very powerful Russia Today, the official channel of the Russian authorities. At the start of this phenomenon of information warfare, the Facebook groups present in particular in Côte d’Ivoire, Mali and Burkina, mainly targeted Operation Barkhane and the French military and economic presence in West Africa, promising to give a different approach to information than that of the traditional mainstream media. Code of Africa, an NGO fighting disinformation, counted at least 175.
The device was further amplified at the start of the war in Ukraine. NGOs specializing in disinformation have turned to the Russian oligarch, Yevgeniv Prigozhin, close to Vladimir Putin and suspected of having developed “fake news” sites and numerous online advertisements, to present NATO as the aggressor , responsible for this conflict, and to defend Russian interests. And according to several observers, including Western diplomats, this technique could pay off for the Russians, even if public opinion is not solely influenced by these devices. A study shows that half of Ivorians would not have voted for the UN resolution condemning the Russian military operation, and that 65% of respondents see Russia as an ally.
>> Mali: how Russia blows on the embers of anti-French sentiment
Russia also goes through opinion relays, West African personalities to relay its message. In the Central African Republic, in Mali, in Côte d’Ivoire, media and political figures abundantly relay the point of view of the Russian authorities on the war in Ukraine in particular, and there again, journalistic investigations have revealed their links with businessmen Russians. The best known of them is the Pan-African and Franco-Beninese anti-colonialist activist Kémi Séba, also classified on the far right. He visited Russia several times and was also invited to Sudan and Libya. The politician Nathalie Yamb, Swiss-Cameroonian, calls herself the “Lady of Sochi”, and very regularly publishes videos to denounce France and its allies. Accused of relaying “fake news”, she has shown her support for the Russian army since the invasion of Ukraine.
Does Europe also participate in this information war, and this race for influence? This is what those close to the Malian junta are currently denouncing, with this latest controversy over training for Malian bloggers aimed at “promoting professionalism in the social media industry”. Funded to the tune of 350,000 euros, they see it as a way of “to bribe” Malian journalists and influencers. Mali where “power is increasingly polarized and where public debate now leaves little room for nuance”answer the bloggers who participated in the training.