UK deals blow to Russia's disinformation push in Africa

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin visits the Valaam Monastery on Valaam island in the northern portion of Lake Ladoga, on August 1, 2025. [AFP]

The United Kingdom’s recent sanctions against Russian individuals running affairs in Europe and African countries that it considers spies have turned out to be a blow to Vladimir Putin’s information manipulation strategy on the African continent.

The mid-July sanctions by the UK against ‘spies running a campaign to destabilise Europe’ spread to an online news agency, African Initiative, which The Standard reported in July as a platform that Western Europe considers a tool for disinformation pushed by Moscow and now taking root in Africa.