Burkina Faso: Pro-Russian campaigns leading up to the coup
This synopsis is intended to offer an overview of emerging coordinated pro-Russian narratives in Burkina Faso, with examples of specific instances that illustrate noteworthy trends or techniques.
- Summary
On 30 September, 34-year-old Captain Ibrahim Traore took power in Burkina Faso in a coup d’etat, citing the deteriorating security situation as his reason for seizing power. This is the tenth coup since the west African country gained its independence in 1960. Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba toppled the previous regime in a similar fashion in February 2022. After this month’s coup, something else happened: some people waved Russian flags in the streets.
Perhaps more significantly, founder of Wagner Group, the influential oligarch and confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin, congratulated Traore after the coup as ‘a truly worthy and courageous son of his motherland’. “The people of Burkina Faso were under the yoke of colonialists, who robbed the people as well as played their vile games, trained, supported gangs of bandits, and caused much grief to the local population,” he said.
Alongside Prigozhin’s comments, there are a number of clearly coordinated pro-Russian social media posts using copy/paste techniques (where accounts use the same text and images to amplify content) with amplification by networks of suspected inauthentic ‘sock- puppet’ accounts that are lobbying for Russian military support. Prigozhin’s praise, along with growing public support for Russian intervention, suggests that Burkina Faso could be the next strategic target for deployment of the Wagner Group paramilitary organisation.
We have not, however, yet identified any overt influence campaigns with clear links to Russian agents. All the coordinated amplification detected for this report is by locally based/affiliated interest groups or campaigners. Our initial machine analysis has only focused on English and French content, due to technical limitations with analysis in indigenous languages. Local human analysts are currently manually validating the initial research results.
Our analysis to date has spotlighted the following notable trends and techniques:
- From an assessment of the Facebook transparency information of the accounts, a significant number of social media accounts promoting Russian involvement in Burkina Faso are run by administrators based in France. The network includes a set of seemingly inauthentic accounts that have generated some of the highest engagement on pro-Russian posts related to Burkina Faso. Our analysts are evaluating whether the accounts are related to the large African diaspora community, or whether they may surreptitiously be managed by players located elsewhere.
- A number of clearly coordinated campaigns ran ahead of the coup, targeting Damida, with narratives suggesting the junta was a ‘craven’ French ally without any interest or commitment to exploring partnerships with anti-colonial partners such as Russia or the Wagner Group. All the campaigns cited Wagner’s supposed successful role in Mali as a reason for Russian involvement in Burkina Faso. The campaigns all used similar copy/paste techniques to achieve mass reach across multiple social media accounts.
- A disproportionate number of the accounts amplifying the campaigns are run by administrators based in Burkina Faso, based on the Facebook transparency section of the accounts. This differs from previously analysed pro-Russian campaigns in the region, that have tended to use transnational networks of accounts that cross-reference/amplify each other. Many of the local accounts are newly created, with these hallmarks of inauthentic accounts. The most viral and compelling content published by the accounts have been traced back to producers in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali.
- There is growing traction around pro-Russian video testimonials/affirmations by nano influencers — every day, engaged social media users — who used live-streams, video ‘stories’ or reports from TikTok videos to express their support for Wagner or other Russian involvement in Burkina Faso as a way to counter French colonial influence. A common narrative by many of these seemingly organic influencers criticised Damiba as a French puppet.
- Pro-Kremlin Russian Telegram channel posting a message claiming that “Niger and its uranium mines are next in line” following the coup in Burkina Faso. This is seemingly intended to imply that Russia is interested in exploiting Niger, after successfully co-opting the public in Burkina Faso, leading to the coup.
2. Information catalysts
CfA uses three sets of ‘signals’ to understand local information ecosystems: we undertake social media ‘listening’ to track what influencers are amplifying; we measure mainstream media coverage as an indicator of what information gatekeepers are prioritising; and we measure internet search trends as an indicator for what topics ordinary (online) citizens are proactively researching.
- Mainstream media assessment
This section outlines how Burkinabé and wider regional mainstream media are reporting on Russia-related topics, including timelines indicating spikes in coverage linked to specific events.
CfA has tracked 180 separate Burkinabé media articles mentioning Russia-related keywords, published between June — October 2022.
Coup period assessment
Our media listening assessment to determine key narratives propagated through the media covered the period 01 June 2022 to 10 October 2022.
Pre-coup assessment
Using the CivicSignal instance of the MediaCloud machine learning tool, our assessment of the local media coverage of Russia-related activities in Burkina Faso for the period before the coup (01 June 2022 and 29 September 2022) shows that there were several spikes in media coverage on the following dates:
On 21 June 2022, the observed spike was as a result of the increased organic reportage of a pro-Russian demonstration at Place Tiéfo Amoro, where citizens were subsequently dispersed by the police.
On 06 July 2022, the observed spike was a result of stories about the council of ministers meeting chaired by then president Paul-Henri Damiba to discuss the approval of an ambassador of Russia to Burkina Faso, and appointing ministerial roles.
On 14 July 2022, the dominant story was the Burkina-Russia coalition asking authorities to speed up the process of diversifying partnerships, and to look to Russia for a ‘win-win partnership’.
On 28 and 29 July 2022, the spike was dominated by stories about Russian soldiers in Burkina Faso receiving medals from Brigadier General Gilbert Ouédraogo, the chief of the general staff of the armed forces, and a declaration by Lieutenant-Colonel Yves Didier Bamouni that the country never severed ties with Russia.
On 4 August 2022, the dominant article was coverage of the Burkina-Russia Coalition urging then president Damiba to partner with Russia instead of France to combat terrorism.
On 24 August 2022, the spikes were caused by stories covering the former prime minister Albert Ouédraogo’s statement saying that inflation was a result of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and that the government had to pay attention to the calls to break ties with France in favour of partnering with Russia.
We observed that the majority of the spikes in the media were as a result of organic amplification of offline events related to Russia and Burkina Faso.
Post-coup assessment
Our assessment of mentions of Russia-related keywords during and after the coup (30 September and 10 October 2022) shows a gradual increase in mentions from the date of the coup, which subsequently decreased after 05 October.
On 04 October, Le Faso and Burkina24 published stories about a demonstration showing protesters waving Russian flags and calling on ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) to let Burkina Faso manage its own transition.
On 03 October Actucameroun, a Cameroonian media organisation, published a story detailing Traoré’s announcement on the state-affiliated Radio France Internationale that ‘Russia is a partner of Burkina Faso, and the Burkinabè army used a lot of Russian arms and equipment’. The same RFI story was also published by Cameroonian news organisation 237online. The story was also aggregated by Bamada in Mali and Centrafrique-presse in CAR.
On 04 October, news aggregators Mali-web and Bamada republished a story it credits as published by ‘aa.com (Anadolu Agency — a Turkey state-run news agency)’, saying that Prigozhin declared his support to Burkina Faso’s new leader. We have not been able to trace the original story. However, we found similar stories on a number of sites, including North Africa Post, RFI, Teller Report and BBC Africa.
Prigozhin’s comments prompted Senegal-based SeneWeb and Setal.net, to suggest that Russia played a role in the coup. The suggestions prompted Russia’s press secretary Dmitri Peskov to deny involvement in a story by Faso-Actu, reported on 03 October, that they would like the situation in Burkina Faso to normalise as soon as possible.
We observed that the spikes after the coup had a more clear stance on Russia playing a role as a partner to Burkina Faso, with more coverage of Prigozhin and Dmitri Peskov.
The assessment is based on CfA MediaCloud and MediaData. The CfA consortium’s MediaData ecosystem mapping survey has profiled 49 of Burkina Faso’s most prominent news organisations. The consortium uses the separate CivicSignal MediaCloud machine learning toolkit to actively monitor the online platforms for 35 of these media. MediaCloud provides near-real-time detailed topic tracking/analysis, allowing our researchers to monitor coverage of topics or issues over time. The resulting data helps researchers identify persistent pro-Russian narratives, and the media and authors driving the coverage, as well as those offering counter-narratives.
2. Social media assessment
This section outlines what Burkinabé social media users are sharing/discussing online, including spotlighting possible pro-Russian influence campaigns. Social media engagement often features links from media or other information sources. The trends help identify specific inflection points or triggers, as well as specific influencers or information sources for further analysis.
An estimated 22% of Burkina Faso’s population has access to the internet. Facebook remains the most persuasive source of digital information for these ~4.599 million people, with Statcounter analysis for June to September 2022 indicating an average ~94% of online citizens use the platform. Twitter comes at a distant second, with 2.85% usage across the country. YouTube is third with 1.6% usage in the country, ahead of Pinterest (which is used regularly by 1.01% of citizens), and Russia’s dominant social media platform, VKontakte (VK), which is has grown from 0.06% (June 2022) to 0.15% (as of September 2022) in Burkina Faso.
Facebook is still the most influential mechanism for ‘super spreaders’ of public information/narratives in Burkina Faso. It is therefore important to map the mentions of Russia-related keywords on the platform and compare these against real-world events. This assessment enables the research team to prioritise its focus on the platforms that are used in the target information environment.
Coup period assessment
Our assessment of the level of activity in mentions of Russia-related keywords for the period between 01 June 2022 and 29 September 2022 showed that there was a significant spike during the period of the coup due to organic pickup of the situation in Burkina Faso by social media users across the world.
This is significantly higher in comparison to similar searches for mentions of keywords related to countries such as China , EU and the US, with Russian keywords garnering a high of 326 posts at its peak compared to 100 and 124 for the EU and US respectively, as shown below.
Pre-coup assessment
We conducted an assessment of the level of activity in mentions of Russia-related keywords for the period between 01 June 2022 and 29 September 2022 and observed a number of significant spikes that correlated with key events and amplified narratives. We observed that for the period under review, there were several spikes in the number of posts and total interactions on these posts on Facebook.
The key amplified events within this period included:
21 June 2022: Coordinated amplification of pro-Russian demonstration in Ouagadougou
Similar to the spike noted on media monitoring, we observed coordinated activity where a network of Facebook accounts amplified similar videos of protesters carrying Russian flags at the demonstration held on 21 June 2022. This amplification seemingly indicates that pro-Russian strategists were trying to imply that there is local support for Russia in Burkina faso. These accounts include pro-Russian Facebook assets mapped by CfA’s iLAB team from March 2021.
We traced the first published post with the pro-Russian protest video to an account called Club des amis de Abdoulaye Wade, a fanpage which had been created as ‘Abdoulaye Wade’, seemingly impersonating a Senegalese politician who was President of Senegal from 2000 to 2012. The account, which changed its name to the current one in April 2020, is administered in France and Senegal and seems to be a fanpage for the politician. From a timeline analysis, we observed that the account often posts on topics about global politics in relation to the US, Russia, EU, NATO etc.
29 July 2022: Amplification of the decoration ceremony for members of the military mission of the Federal Republic of Russia
Similarly, on 29 June 2022, we observed the amplification of a ceremony held in Burkina Faso at the premises of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, to recognise the efforts of Russian military members and to improve military cooperation and friendship between Russia and Burkina Faso. The members of the military mission were awarded the Knight of the Order of the Stallion and Order of Merit for Administration and Labour with Friendship and Cooperation Staple. Notably, the patient zero post with the text and image that was copy pasted was an organic post from a legitimate Facebook media page of Burkina 24, a popular media outlet based in Burkina Faso which was subsequently copied verbatim by accounts of several other media outlets in the country. An assessment of the amplification network shows accounts that amplified the post within seconds/ minutes of each other — indicating a possible coordinated network of accounts.
Spike i. 16 August 2022: Burkina Faso, Russia and Mali participates in the 2022 international military games in Algeria
We observed that the 16 August spike was significantly as a result of the announcement by the leading military junta in Mali, that several countries including Algeria, Belarus, Burkina Faso, China, Congo, India, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, Nicaragua, Uzbekistan, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Vietnam, and Venezuela were participating in the International Competition of Parachuting Units at the 8th edition of the International Military Games which took place from August 16 to 26, 2022 in Blida, Algeria.
We observed that a coordinated network of nine pro-Russian accounts had started a campaign on the same day, quoting an alleged statement from the embassy of the Russian federation in Mali, condemning the rebel attacks near the three borders between Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso and claiming that Russia had provided assurance that it will continue to provide the legitimate authorities in Mali with diverse assistance in the fight against terrorism. We noted that the amplification, although not successfully gaining organic traction, was started by a coordinated network of accounts later discussed in section three of this report.
Of interest is that the same network of accounts started and amplified the announcement about Burkina Faso, Russia and Mali’s participation in the 2022 international military games in Algeria. The patient zero post, which was subsequently amplified through copy & paste method, originated from NIANG TV.
Spike ii. 25 September 2022: Amplification of Burkina Faso’s president’s meeting with Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov
Similarly, a number of Facebook pages, including pro-Russian assets on the platform used copy-paste strategy to amplify a meeting between the president of Burkina Faso, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov held at the United Nations (UN) headquarters, as part of a normal framework of consultations organised between Burkina Faso and other countries at the UN session.
Social media assessment shows that there were several coordinated attempts to amplify pro-Russian messaging — showing Russia/ Wagner as a strategic partner for Burkina Faso.
Post-coup assessment
Our assessment of social media activity for the period between 30 September 2022 and 10 October 2022, indicates that there was a steady but gradual rise in the level of engagement and discussion about Russia’s involvement in the coup. This coverage then decreased to the normal rate of posting after 05 October 2022 possibly because accounts, including those covering internal events, that had jumped onto the conversation because it’s a trending topic — had refocused attention to issues in their own environments.
We noted similar significant spikes on Twitter, between 30 September 2022 and 05 October 2022, during the coup that overthrew the government. The initial mentions appear designed to raise Russia’s public profile, followed by an ongoing higher frequency of mentions with an increased overt pro-Russian sentiment.
We observed that the coverage just after the coup majorly described Russia’s involvement in the coup in Burkina Faso.
3. Google search trends assessment
This section outlines trends relating to Burkinabé interest in Russia-related searches on Google (which is the dominant search engine in Burkina Faso) as an indicator of how combined media and social media content exposure may be shaping the ‘average person’s’ perceptions.
There were a number of significant spikes in searches for ‘Wagner’, ‘Russia’, ‘Russie’, ‘Putin’ between 01 June and 10 October 2022, with the majority of the ‘Russie’ searches concentrated at the time of the coup on 30 September 2022, while searches for ‘Wagner’ had the highest spike on 16 July 2022.
3. Emerging tactics + techniques:
This section spotlights emerging tactics/techniques and actors involved in propagating pro-Russian messaging in Burkina Faso.
- Copy-paste strategy: Coordinated network used similar messaging to amplify pro-Russian sentiment
As noted above, we observed concerted efforts by pro-Russian Facebook actors to copy-paste messages in an attempt to ensure the content goes viral. Using python, we developed a package we refer to as ‘Text Similarity Analysis Package (TSAP)’ — to determine the similarity of text in multiple Facebook posts.
We observed that 54.83% of Facebook posts were directly copy-pasted from another post within the dataset, with a similarity score higher than 95%. Some of these posts were created within seconds/ minutes of each other, indicating a high level of coordination.
These accounts frequently published pro-Russian narratives which were copy pasted within a few minutes to reach large audiences. The narratives amplified are discussed in the next section of this report.
2. Diaspora amplification: Coordinated Facebook pages run from France amplifying pro-Russian sentiment in Burkina Faso
From our analysis, we observed that the second highest number of accounts were administered from France with a number of seemingly inauthentic amplification behaviour sharing pro-Russian sentiment targeted at the Sahel countries and frequently sharing pro-Russian posts about the war in Ukraine. The accounts appear to be sock-puppets meant to impersonate media outlets. However, they do not have legitimate websites or associated publications.
Of significance, was a coordinated effort observed within three Facebook pages, Noah 24 infos (an account run by 5 administrators in France and recently changed its name to ‘Politique mondiale’ on 10 November 2022), Addicted De L’infos & Afrika News. All three are newly created, and frequently publish content about Russia and its involvement in the African continent. These three pages command really high visibility of Russia-related content — with two of the accounts garnering the highest total of interactions compared to all posts made during the pre-coup period.
We observed that the two accounts frequently quoted posts from Afrika News and vice versa, suggesting a level of coordinated amplification of each other’s posts. They were also administered primarily from France.
We noted that the follower growth of the accounts have also been at a similar rate currently with a combined total of ~134,000 followers. Posts originating from the accounts have also been growing at a similar rate.
3. Emerging actors: Newly created pro-Russian accounts amplifying the calls for a Burkina — Russia cooperation before and after the coup
We observed a number of newly created Africa-based accounts administered from Burkina Faso, as well as neighbouring countries including Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, and Mali that frequently published posts calling on Burkina Faso to establish a relationship with Russia/ Wagner.
Local influencers: Emergence of viral live videos from a growing pro-Russian influencer community
We also observed a significant growth in a network of pro-Russian nano influencers, who frequently record viral live videos, sharing their opinions about key events happening in the region. These videos often receive significant engagement on Facebook — some with more than ~500,000 views, and the majority of the supporters congratulating or promoting a Russian/ Wagner military collaboration with the countries within the region in the comment section.
4. Amplified narratives
This section examines the ‘meta’ narratives that were amplified pre and post coup, citing specific examples. The section lists the most noteworthy incidents or narratives chronologically, with the most recent first.
- Damiba is allied to the French and refuses engagement with Russia/ Wagner
We observed a coordinated smear campaign by a set of pro-Russian accounts calling out Damiba as a French puppet or ally, who didn’t have a preference for cooperating with Russia/ Wagner.
2. Calls for Damiba to cooperate with Russia
We also observed that the coordinated accounts discussed above frequently called for Damiba to cooperate with Russia as opposed to France.
3. Burkina Faso as the next strategic partner for Wagner
The accounts also frequently share anti-French messaging, pointing to Burkina Faso as the next country to engage the Wagner group, after the Central African Republic and Mali.
4. Kremlin propaganda Telegram channel says Niger’s mines are next following Burkina Faso coup
Research by DFRLabs Research Associate, Tessa Knight identified a pro-Kremlin Russian channel with 807,648 subscribers, which posted a statement in Russian saying that “Niger and its uranium mines are next in line” following the coup in Burkina Faso. The post had 510,796 views, 199 comments and over 13,600 positive engagements.
5. Conclusion
During the pre-coup period, the spike in mainstream media coverage of Russian-related activities played a role in driving the pro-Russian sentiment in Burkina Faso. Some of the notable narratives/events that received heightened reportage include: Pro-Russian demonstration at Place Tiéfo Amoro, and Burkina- Faso-Russian coalition asking authorities to speed up the process of diversifying their partnerships and consider Rusia for a ‘win-win partnership.’
There were a number of coordinated networks on Facebook, which used copy-paste strategy to amplify pro-Rusian narratives such as calling for Damiba to cooperate with Russia, pointing Burkina Faso as the next strategic partner for Wagner and stating that Damiba is allied to the French and refuses engagements with Russia/Wagner.
A network of social media accounts which promoted the involvement of Russia in Burkina Faso were run by administrators based in France. This network was made up of seemingly inauthentic accounts that are behind some of the highest pro-Russian engagement posts in relation to Burkina Faso.
The growth in the traction of pro-Russian testimonial/ affirmation videos by nano influencers was a way of countering French colonial influence. These influencers used live streams, video ‘stories’ to express their support for Wagner or other Russian involvement in Burkina Faso.
Generally, the multiple pro-Russian campaigns observed on social media prior to the coup contributed significantly to the pro-Russian sentiment observed during the coup. Multiple calls for Burkina Faso leadership to cooperate with Russia and possibly engage the Wagner group have the ability to sway public opinion. This comes at a time when countries within the region are increasingly dealing with multiple rebel uprisings and perceives existing interventions, especially from the French, as ineffective. Coupled with the pan-Africanism sentiment also observed within the region, we see evidence of each country being driven into a preference for a Russian collaboration, especially due to the claim by pro-Russian accounts, that Wagner succeeded in countries such as the Central African Republic and Mali.
This report was co-written by CfA senior investigative manager Allan Cheboi and editor-in-chief Justin Arenstein, based on analysis by Christian Ngine, Dawit Hassen, Tessa Knight and Uzor God’sGift, with additional editorial review by Amanda Strydom, Natasha Landman and Christine Mitchelle Awuor.
Do you have incidents of suggested influence operations or coordinated disinformation that you think we should investigate? Share your leads with us, securely, on Signal or Telegram.
