title: Russia’s return to Africa in a historical and global context: Anti-imperialism, patronage, and opportunism
abstract: This article contextualises Russia’s involvement in Africa through the lenses of the Soviet past, current rulership architecture in Russia, and its recent operations abroad. Russia deploys normative justifications like anti-colonialism to justify its involvement in Africa. Russian agents in Africa are drawn from vast political-oligarchic patronage networks, making these agents perfectly suited to operate in patronage-political contexts that are widely observed across Africa. The diffusion of Rus
journal: South African Journal of International Affairs