Key findings
ISD studied more than 500 pieces of content posted by six pro-Kremlin influencers aimed at audiences in the Alliance of Sahel States (AES): Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. The X posts collected were posted between 1 April and 31 May 2025, meanwhile the YouTube videos collected were posted over a longer timeframe (between 23 August 2016 and 31 May 2025). The primary reason for this variation in data collection periods is the availability of data through commercial social listening tools. While it was possible to process large quantities of YouTube videos using AI tools, the X data was collected manually from Brandwatch, which only yields the last 90 days of results. However, all YouTube content considered relevant to the investigation was posted in the period 2020 to 2025, with the exception of one video from 2019. The narratives and the examples were drawn from videos posted between 2022 and 2025 to keep the analysis as relevant as possible.
Analysis of the content revealed the following findings:
- Videos contained four main categories of narratives: content presenting Russia as more of an ally than the West; pro-Kremlin talking points about the Russia-Ukraine war; allegations that Ukraine supports terrorism in the Sahel zone; and accusations that Western countries support terrorists and terrorist groups in the Sahel zone. These narratives resemble those observed in other national contexts but adapted for local geopolitics.
- Most of the content analysed was disseminated in video format, often presented through monologues that facilitate parasocial relationships with audiences. Four of the pro-Kremlin influencers studied in this investigation run their own YouTube channels, where they regularly publish videos on current affairs in the Sahel and other parts of Africa.
- Some influencers have appeared on Russian state media, including RT or Sputnik. In other cases, they use snippets of videos whose visual layout is similar to RT, Sputnik or websites associated with the Kremlin-aligned Pravda network. ISD also discovered that local YouTube channels and TV stations based in the AES countries used video snippets that were previously broadcast on Russian state media and showed some of the pro-Kremlin influencers studied in this investigation.