In 1986, Suo Dobson, a young white woman from Pretoria, was recruited by the African National Congress (ANC) to be a spy in the apartheid system in South Africa.

As part of its mission, it was transferred to Moscow for specialized training.

“It was a very intense training course,” said Dobson, who is now retires and lives in England. “[It] How to pick up observation, things like secret writing, photography, and output strategies. There were many street exercises where I was going out and I had to select six or eight people who were following me, either on foot or in a car, tram or train car, anything like that. “

She did not have much free time, but she managed to spend a few days in Leningrad, now called St. Petersburg.

“It should be the winter of 1986 and everything is covered with snow.” “It was very beautiful.”

When she returned to South Africa the following year, she was appointed as a reporter at the Information Office, the propaganda wing in the apartheid system. The job gave her access to ministers and other prominent information. But in 1989, the authorities discovered the links of her family at the African National Congress Party and covered her cover.

“I was told to stay where I was and that I would accompany me to Pretoria in a plane with someone from foreign affairs, which was the soothing of the Ministry of Intelligence, and I decided that I would not be suspended,” said Dobson, who was burning.

“The game ended, and I made my hierarchy during the night … I had to split my way to Botswana, and the Soviet diplomats helped me there and put me on a plane to the United Kingdom.”

Dobson said she did not know enough about “nuances and fine details of the situation” to comment on the extensive invasion of Ukraine.

While the Western powers largely condemned the modern Russia attack on its neighbor, sympathy for the Kremlin came from an unexpected quarter: Africa.

Only half of the African governments condemned Russia at the United Nations in 2022, the year launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin the war.

Experts say this trend lies in the historical match in Moscow for anti -imperial reasons.

Russia’s decline against Western influence in Africa dates back to the nineteenth century. While other European powers Plasting and dividing The continent during the stampede for Africa, the Russian Empire took the side of their Orthodox Christian colleagues in Ethiopia in the Italian and Hebaret war 1895-1896, providing weapons and other support.

However, according to Olksander Poliannchive, the Ukrainian historian of the Russian Empire, Russian involvement was largely exaggerated.

“Many of this narration returns to Nikolai L’ynev, a Russian adventurer who arrived in Ethiopia in early 1895 and strangled his way to the inner circle of [Ethiopian Emperor] Manelik II, “Polyianism to Jazera.

“In his novel for the Ethiopian resistance of Italy, Lyongor described the lavishness of the decisive role that he claimed to play in the battlefield, and imagined himself as a victory engineer in the Battle of Adwa.

Leontiev is often attributed to a shipment of weapons and ammunition that helped Ethiopia to repel Italian colonists.

“While the Russian government has already sent these weapons at the request of Longev – the old Birdan rifles no longer needed by the Russian army, which was adopting the new Mousin rifles – they have never reached Ethiopia in a timely manner,” added Polianchive. “The ship that moves them was detained by the Italians, and the shipment did not reach Ethiopia until after the war ended.”

Although the Russian naval capabilities meant that Africa’s colonization of themselves was never a realistic possibility, this did not prevent Nikolai Ashinov, the leader of a group of Cossacks, from landing on the shores of Djibouti in 1889 and announced that it was Russian land. However, the French have already established a colony and soon delivered the Ashenov settlement by bombing it with warships.

Later, during the Cold War, the Soviets With help Friendly governments in Angola, Mozambique and the Congo in conflicts against the factions backed by Western powers, although they are not always successful.

The Soviet Union was also an ally of Egypt during the era of General Gamal Abdel Nasser, where he presented arms deals and infrastructure assistance.

“The Soviet Union had ideological and practical motives to support anti -colonial movements and end colonialism in the global south,” explained by Kimberly St. Julian Fararen, an American historian of the Soviet Union.

On the one hand, she was fighting the United States and Western Europe to show that socialism presented the best form of society and the government.

On the other hand, the Soviet Union benefited from the commercial agreements that strengthened the export of goods to the allied countries and granted the Soviet Union a set of natural resources from the global south, which was imported much lower than market prices.

As part of its communication with African countries, the University of Patrice Lumumba, which was named after the Congolese leader, was opened in Moscow, where about 500 scholarships were granted annually to African students.

But some said that they suffered from racism. In 1963, Edmund was reported that Edmond-Eddo, a Ghanaian student, was beaten to death due to a relationship between the alleged races, which led to a rare protest against Red Square.

“This was a flagrant contradiction to the Soviet propaganda in their countries of origin, which promoted the country as the opposite of the European colonial powers,” said St. Julian Fararenon.

Sometimes, reports on racism in the Soviet Union have arrived at the Western media and undermined the Soviet attacks on American anti -lions racism.

While the racist propaganda of the Soviet Union was depicted as resources in South Africa, the Soviets supported the African National Congress and its armed wing, Umkhonto Wesizwe (MK), since the sixties of the last century, arming and training them like Sue Dobson.

“Certainly, I think the African National Congress Party will not forget the role played by the Soviet Union in enabling the African National Congress Party to reach power,” said Dobson.

“I think it is a great respect and honor.

The African National Congress Party is currently the ruling party of South Africa, and while maintaining a neutral position, the government avoids the condemnation of Russia directly, and may reflect continuous sympathy like many members of the African National Congress Party either trained or studied in the Soviet Union, which is Russia is the state of success.

“The attractiveness of the Russian novel hostile to colonialism”

There is more explicit support for Russia at the level of the popular base.

In February, a small march from the Ukrainian South Africa was boycotted in Derban by the contestants waving Russian flags and playing the song Mimi Sigma Boy, which is a viral pop music written by a Russian composer.

Russian flags are not an unfamiliar scene elsewhere on the continent.

Moscow has forgiven the debts of many African countries, and shoes on Earth were provided to address security concerns in countries such as Mali and the Central African Republic, where local leaders welcomed their support despite the allegations of atrocities by Russian mercenaries.

Historian Polianchive said: “The attractiveness of Russia’s” anti -colonial novel “lies in its usefulness of societies and the ruling elites throughout Eurasia and beyond, who are ready to accept it or even embrace it as long as it is in line with its political sensitivities.”

“It is not considered a foregone reason because Russia was” really hostile to the imperialism “in the past, but because it opposes the activity of the West at the present time.