By Mykola Kuzmin

Abidjan, late afternoon. A university student sits in a cafe, phone in hand. A video surges across her feed: soldiers in fatigues storming a palace, smoke in the background, a voiceover declaring the government has fallen.

Coup! Ouattara is gone.” She looks up. Outside, the traffic flows, the sun sets, and the city is calm.

The coup never happened. But for a few moments, she believed.

This is the new battlefield in West Africa.

Not tanks, not columns of fighters, but waves of disinformation, much of it linked to Russia and its affiliates, aimed at destabilising Ivory Coast. And it is happening for one reason: Abidjan represents a rare success story - democratic, economically dynamic, and a close Western ally.

For Moscow, that makes Ivory Coast a prime target. It is not a fragile state teetering on collapse, but one of Africa’s quiet economic miracles. Over the past decade, growth has averaged more than six per cent. It was recently described as Africa’s “best-kept secret.”

Much of Russia’s disinformation in the region has been pushed by pan-Africanist influencers sympathetic to Moscow, who cast coups as patriotic acts while dismissing elected governments as “neo-colonial” projects. These are narratives that fit neatly into the Kremlin’s long game of weakening trust in democratic institutions.

This was not spontaneous chatter.

Investigations traced many of the posts to networks operating from neighbouring countries, where Russian influence has grown. The aim was clear - sow distrust in the Ivory........

© LBC