Cameroon’s role in the Russian propaganda machine
Several private Cameroonian media outlets maintain ties with entities linked to Russia and the SVR, Moscow’s foreign intelligence service. Who is behind these vectors of Russian propaganda?
On 11 February, the fatigues of Mali’s Assimi Goïta, Niger’s Abdourahamane Tiani and Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré were prominently displayed on the website of Panafrican Media TV (PM-TV).
The illustrated article, entitled ‘AES: L’alliance qui donne des insomnies a l’impérialisme‘ (AoSS: The alliance that keeps imperialism awake at night) was unequivocal: the Alliance of Sahel States (AoSS) is “improving with time” thanks to its leaders, “these soldiers reclaiming African sovereignty”.
On 5 March, the site published another article in the same vein, headlined ‘AoSS: An inspiring revolution for African unity’.
What exactly is PM-TV? With a website and a YouTube channel followed by nearly 40,000 subscribers, the platform was founded in 2023 by Cameroonian Mohamed Bachir Ladan.
Described as a journalist and pan-Africanist, he was also appointed that same year as communications director of the International BRICS Alliance for Central and West Africa. This “alliance”, founded by Russia and heavily imbued with Kremlin thinking, seeks to position itself as the leader of a “Global South” opposed to the West.
Fake BRICS
The ‘International BRICS Alliance’ has no official link with the BRICS group, which today brings together Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Ethiopia.
It nonetheless trades on the confusion surrounding the name and has stepped up its activities across Africa, where former Ivorian minister Ahoua Don Mello became its vice president in 2022.
Don Mello benefited significantly from PM-TV’s coverage during his bid in Côte d’Ivoire’s October 2025 presidential election.
PM-TV’s links with Russia’s propaganda infrastructure run deeper. The platform broadcasts content produced by Globus Expert Council (Globus), an organisation co-founded by a Russian national, Yulia Berg.
She has previously been the subject of an investigation by our sister magazine Jeune Afrique. A former member of the Wagner Group close to its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, she is one of the key operatives in Russia’s propaganda efforts in Africa.
Yulia Berg has also been placed under US sanctions for her activities.
According to recent documents obtained by the All Eyes on Wagner collective, she is among the consultants working for Africa Politology, an organisation linked to Russia’s foreign intelligence service (SVR).
Berg previously headed Afric, a think tank used by Wagner to promote Pan-Africanist figures such as Nathalie Yamb and Kemi Seba.
All indications suggest that Globus has taken over all or part of Afric’s activities within Africa Politology, under more direct SVR supervision.
Globus and PM-TV collaborate in particular through Clarisse Wiydorven. As early as 2023, she travelled to Mariupol, Ukraine, as an observer of elections organised by Russia in the occupied territory.
She filmed a documentary there in collaboration with Globus. A Cameroonian and former employee of Afrique Media TV – like Mohamed Bachir Ladan – Wiydorven has been presented as a Globus Expert Council staff member at public events.
Contacted by Jeune Afrique, she “respectfully declined” to answer questions about her involvement with Globus.
“PM-TV, like any other Cameroonian media outlet with a Pan-African editorial stance, is concerned solely with Africa’s interests,” she nonetheless stated, citing “efforts to create an independent African media and interpretative space in a changing global context”.
Globus Expert Council, the hub
PM-TV is not the only platform maintaining close ties with Globus. The same applies to For You Media (FYM), founded by former Cameroonian presidential candidate Serge Espoir Matomba and headed by Diane Manuela Sike Doumbe.
According to their social media accounts, both have travelled several times to Russia or occupied Ukraine – notably in July 2023; February, March, June and October 2024; and June 2025.
FYM has broadcast, among other content, a documentary entitled Russo-Ukrainian Conflict: The Hidden Truth.
The film was produced in collaboration with Globus and Yulia Berg. FYM also republishes numerous items originating from Russia Today – after removing its logo – and in June 2024 signed a partnership in St Petersburg with International Reporters, an organisation founded by the Russian government as a rival to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
Through FYM, Serge Espoir Matomba has promoted a sovereigntist, anti-Western discourse, strengthened after his unsuccessful first bid in Cameroon’s 2018 presidential election (0.56% of the vote).
Contacted by Jeune Afrique, Matomba insisted that FYM has no “structural or financial partnership affecting [its] editorial line” with Globus Expert Council.
“We remain committed to our editorial independence and are bound by no funding or editorial agreement with foreign entities,” added the Cameroonian politician, who claims to have financed his own trips to Russia “strictly in a journalistic capacity”.
With 0.35% of the vote – around 15,000 ballots – in October 2025 for his second attempt, he does not appear to have benefitted from his Russophile sovereigntist turn.
However, FYM has now surpassed 206,000 YouTube subscribers. It notably offered them a video relaying a fake news item originating from the SVR, alleging that NATO had urged Ukraine to trigger a nuclear catastrophe at the Zaporizhzhia power plant.
Afrique Media, the Russophile big brother
This is no coincidence: a recent investigation by Forbidden Stories, based on leaked Russian documents, highlights links between the SVR and the Russian propaganda network in Africa, Africa Politology, which oversees Globus.
According to that investigation, intelligence officers Dmitry Leonidovich Faddeev and Ilya Savelyev now direct its strategy, in liaison with Sergei Machkevitch, an associate of Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash in August 2023.
As executive director of Africa Politology, Machkevitch is, according to the organisational chart, Yulia Berg’s superior – and thus Globus’s indirect boss.
PM-TV and FYM also benefit from the experience of another entity close to former Wagner operatives: Afrique Media TV (AM-TV).
Founded around 2010 by Cameroonian Justin Blaise Tagouh and Central African Martin Ngningaye, the channel suffered a major setback in January 2025 when its YouTube account – which had nearly one million subscribers – was shut down.
Justin Blaise Tagouh was also sanctioned by the European Union in May 2025 for his alleged involvement in activities supporting Russian influence.
Since then, AM-TV has stopped broadcasting Russia Today programmes, which are under international sanctions, but has maintained its editorial line via its website and Odysee, an alternative to YouTube.
The majority of its content continues to focus on sovereignist themes, prominently featuring Russia, Ukraine and the AoSS.
On 26 February a Facebook account devoted to football (Tagouh is the former president of Bamboutos de Mbouda) showed him shaking hands with Gabonese president Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema.
In June 2025, Cameroonian AM-TV journalist Celeste Kapen spoke at a forum organised by the group in Russia. She did not respond to our request for comment.
With 1.2 million Facebook followers, Afrique Media remains one of the main conduits for Russian ideas on the continent.
Alongside an interview with President Vladimir Putin on Moscow’s Syria policy, the channel rebroadcasts footage labelled ‘Africa Corps’, the entity controlled by Russian military intelligence that replaced Wagner in Africa.
Putin’s mercenaries extol their much-disputed effectiveness in Mali to the sound of American rock music.
AM-TV, FYM and PM-TV are also aligned in their criticism of France’s presence on the continent.
On 3 December 2025, Afrique Media TV aired a report accusing the French of destabilising Niger.
PM-TV has regularly attacked Paris’s policy on Ukraine, while For You Media has taken a more domestically focused approach in Cameroon.
FYM thus accused Emmanuel Macron of supporting Paul Biya, the incumbent president, against whom its founder, Serge Espoir Matomba, stood in the presidential election.
At times, Russia’s interests converge with the agenda of its African relays.
This article originally appeared on The Africa Report.