Russian specialists purportedly planned a disinformation campaign to tarnish the images of the DA and EFF in a bid to influence the elections in SA.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that documents – seen by the publication and the Daily Maverick – were prepared by an organisation linked to a St Petersburg businessman with ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On the face of it, the plan appeared to favour the ANC but there was no indication that the party endorsed such a scheme.
“The plan to interfere in SA’s election was co-ordinated by a Russian political technologist, Peter Bychkov, who works for [Yevgeny] Prigozhin, according to the documents. The disinformation campaign was plotted by a Russian-owned NGO, the Association for Free Research and International Co-operation (Afric), under the guise of research,” reported the Guardian.
Prigozhin is a prominent businessman known as “Putin’s chefR
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