The story of how Africans—as well as Latin Americans, many Asians, and indeed many Americans and Europeans—have come to repeat Russian propaganda about Ukraine is not primarily a story about European colonial history. It rather involves China’s systematic efforts to buy or influence media and elite audiences around the world; carefully curated Russian propaganda campaigns, some amplified by both paid and unpaid members of the American and European far right; and, increasingly, the efforts of other autocracies piggybacking on these networks, using the same tactics and the same language to
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