This is a CBSI in the world. I'm John Bachelor. The Democratic Republic of Congo,

aka the Belgian Congo, aka the Heart of Darkness, once upon a time.

It's not legendary anymore.

Here in the 21st century, it's filled with resources,

ambitious people, educated people moving back and forth, a francophone country, and again, it looks to be joining a trend throughout Africa, sub-Saharan Africa in particular.

And I welcome Ronan Wordsworth, an analyst for geopolitical futures, especially in Africa, to begin with the report of the Democratic Republic of

Congo and Russia that's right Russia. Ronan a very good evening to you the d.

r Congo and Russia that isn't obviously a leap that I can make without explanation.

Is this outreach from Moscow has Russia always been present? Is this part of the Russian presence in other sub-Saharan African countries we've

discussed? Good evening to you.

Good evening, John. Thanks for having me.

Yes, so what we see now is Russia getting involved in a lot of African countries, particularly

in the last two years in the week of the war in Ukraine.

And in the DRC they've tended to be not as involved

and they've tried to get now a presence by utilizing

disinformation tactics and social media and things like that similar to what has been effective for them elsewhere.

And just over the last two weeks, I would say somewhat as a result of that we've seen a lot of

protests across the capital Kinshasa and then spread to smaller

smaller cities cities in the east of the country near the border of Rwanda and Uganda against specifically

Western actors being there.

So these protests have targeted UN facilities have been outside the US embassy,

have been outside the French embassy and have been based around a perceived lack of help and assistance with rebel groups in the east of the country.

...