In Chad, four Russian influencers arrested at N'Djamena airport

The Russian and Chadian flags flutter side by side in front of the new “Russian House” in N’Djamena. On Saturday, September 21, the guests of the cultural center chat around the buffet while the speakers play a tune by Tchaikovsky. But one guest is missing. Two days earlier, Maksim Shugaley, director of the Foundation for the Defense of National Values ​​(FDVN) and spearhead of Russian influence operations in Africa, was arrested with three of his colleagues at the N’Djamena airport. He has since been detained in an unknown location for equally unknown reasons.

Under American and European sanctions for having conducted disinformation operations for the benefit of the Wagner Group, Maksim Shugaley, who presents himself as a sociologist, was a loyalist of the founder of the paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, killed in a plane crash in August 2023, two months after his aborted rebellion against the Kremlin. In a statement published Monday, Russian diplomacy said it had “taken the necessary measures” to obtain his release ” fast “ by contacting the Chadian authorities.

In N'Djamena, the Minister Delegate for Foreign Affairs, Fatimé Aldjineh Garfa, told the World not to have been “officially seized of the case” and not have “no information on this subject”, but a person close to the case assures that “instructions have been given that Maksim Shugaley and his colleagues will soon be handed over to the Russian authorities.” Another government source confirmed, on condition of anonymity, the arrest of the four men. “by state services”, without further details.

Rapprochement

This formulation seems to point to the responsibility of the National State Security Agency (ANSE), the country's feared secret services, which answer only to the presidency. In 2019, Maksim Shugaley had already been detained for “attempted electoral interference” in Libya and was only released a year and a half later, at the end of a media campaign in which Yevgeny Prigozhin was personally involved. But this new arrest surprises his close associates in several ways.

First, the Russian “sociologist” has visited Chad twice this year without being troubled. In particular, he met with supporters of presidential candidate Mahamat Idriss Déby ahead of the presidential election in May. He had then declared to the World that “The country's authorities were kind enough to [lui] give the opportunity to satisfy [son] scientific interest ».

The incident also comes at a time of growing rapprochement between Russia and Chad. Mahamat Idriss Déby visited Moscow in January, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited N'Djamena six months later. Surrounded by countries supported directly or indirectly by the Kremlin, Chad is an exception in the Sahel in maintaining alliances with Western countries, including France – with which relations have nevertheless been cooler since the National Financial Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation against Mr. Déby for suspicion of “ill-gotten gains.”

Playing on their links with each other, the Chadian authorities are brandishing the threat of a rapprochement with Russia as a means of putting pressure on their Western allies, while judiciously diversifying their military partnerships (United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Hungary, etc.) to free themselves from the bosom of France, which still has a base in N'Djamena.

Takeover

Finally, the Russian state is taking over the activities of the Wagner Group, both on the military level, with the “Africa Corps” system., than at the level of civil activities, under the banner of the “African Initiative” – two entities directly linked to Russian military intelligence and secret services.

In their report, “Africa Corps: A New Version of an Old Russian Military Presence,” Filip Bryjka and Jedrzej Czerep of the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) argue that Russian foreign intelligence “supervise Russian cultural institutions” and that the deployment of a network of Russian Houses on the continent is an integral part of this project. Responsible for disseminating the official Kremlin discourse in Africa while providing language and civilization courses, they are coordinated by Rossotrudnichestvo, the Russian federal cooperation agency, placed under European sanctions by Brussels, which considers it a tool of influence.

Two representatives of Rossotrudnichestvo were present in N'Djamena for the opening of the Russian House at the time of Maksim Shugaley's arrest. Is Shugaley paying the price for this takeover? In recent months, he has continued to predict the failure of the new architecture of the Russian presence in Africa and to reaffirm his loyalty to the late Yevgeny Prigozhin. On his Telegram channel, the last message, posted on August 23, the anniversary of the death of the former Wagner boss, is a tribute to the man he describes as “hero”.