U.S. Protests are backed by Russian pressure group CNN disclosed in Ghana

U.S. protesters are called up by a Russian-controlled troll farm. This farm fell under the spotlight of CNN and reporter Clarissa Ward and producer Katie Polglase this April in Ghana.

The CNN reporters pointed out that the Eliminating Barriers for the Liberation of Africa (EBLA) organization was a cover for the cyber-influence groups operating from the territory of Ghana, focused almost exclusively on racial issues in the US, according to the reporters, promoting black empowerment and often displaying anger towards white Americans. The goal, according to experts who follow Russian disinformation campaigns, is to inflame divisions among Americans and provoke social unrest.

 

Facebook says that about 13,200 Facebook accounts followed one or more of the Ghana accounts and around 263,200 people followed one or more of Instagram accounts, about 65% of whom were in the US.

 

 

 

One of the accounts even pretended to be the cousin of an African American who died in police custody. The post was then shared to a Facebook group called Africans in the United States. The group told CNN it had no idea that trolls were trying to engage it. Further IGTDS analysis of the group reveals that it is most probably a part of the Russian pressure group affiliated with 74455 military unit, that was already the target for IGTDS analysis in December 2019 (Russia’s Anti-Globalist Movement).

 

A second look at Alexander Ionov’s Facebook followers and friends’ content in May 2020 indicates their active involvement in calling up the protesters not just in the United States, but also in the countries of Africa.

Ionov’s contacts from African People’s Socialist Party USA are extremely active.

The narratives of posts published on social networks coincide both with each other and with messages of current protests in the USA. The key message for the majority of reports is police violence against black people. Moreover, such cases in the United States are mostly combined with the facts of human rights abuse by the police in African countries.

 

This approach obviously intends to showcase a massive violation of the black people rights in the United States, given the information is disseminated on behalf of African People’s Socialist Party USA.

 

During the pandemic, the Psyop narrative was supplemented by black people rights abuse and their discrimination in medical institutions.

 

 

The second narrative circulated by the accounts affiliated with Russia is the populist one stating that those who oppressed the black population should pay reparations. This message is addressed to the poor and is targeting to call up the followers using the Marxist-Leninist formula “Take from the rich – give to the poor.” This message promotes the radicalization of protests and vandalism.

The campaign in the countries of Africa has similar narratives, but it pursues a different goal – to crack down on the U.S. presence in Africa. The narrative equating racism and colonialism is undoubtedly targeting to blame the U.S. and the West as a whole. Moscow incidentally personifies colonialism and relates it to the West through racism. Consequently, racism combating, as envisioned by the information campaign initiators, should be to reduce the influence and presence of the United States in Africa.