The head of US Africa Command warned Congress on Thursday that Russia is aggressively working to expand its footing among African countries, leaving several “at the tipping point” of falling under its influence.
“[A] number of countries are at the tipping point of actually being captured by the Russian Federation as they are spreading some of their false narratives across Libya and from a strategic answer piece, access and influence across the whole Maghreb,” Marine Corps Gen. Michael Langley told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “That is NATO’s southern flank. We need to be able to have — maintain access and influence across the Mahgreb, from Morocco all the way to Libya.”
There are hundreds of US service members in Africa, according to AFRICOM. US officials have warned for years now that both Russia and China are working to tighten their grips on the continent. The former head of US Africa Command, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, said in 2019 that Russia was using mercenaries and arms sales to gain access to natural resources in Africa.
“They want to have influence on the continent,” Waldhauser told Congress at the time. Langley said Thursday that the US has been “drowned out” by Russian disinformation in previous years, leading to Russia’s success in stoking “a lot of the instability across the Sahel.”
“I would say the Russian Federation’s narrative drowned out the US government’s in the past years. They were excelling,” Langley said. “The Russian Federation — not just through Wagner — stoked a lot of the instability across the Sahel. They did this through misinformation, disinformation campaigns.”
Langley called for more resources to combat Russia’s narrative, particularly more resources for US information operations. But it wasn’t just Russia…
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