This report seeks to contribute to that ongoing conversation by broadening it: it shows that forms of domination long familiar to Asia, Africa, and Latin America have also shaped the histories of parts of Eastern Europe, even if this has rarely been recognised or articulated in global discourse.

 

Authours: 

• Olga Vorozhbyt
• Yuliia Shaipova

 

 

By placing Eastern Europe in dialogue with the Global South rather than at its margins, the report tries to bring parallels to how countries such as Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states experienced practices that mirror colonial logics – economic extraction, suppression of local elites, cultural erasure, and the denial of distinct political identities. These experiences were obscured by their geographic proximity to the empire and by the Soviet Union’s, and later Russian Federation, self-presentation as an anti-colonial champion, which has complicated global understanding of the region’s past. Yet recognising these parallels does not diminish the histories of the Global South; instead, it underscores how wide-ranging and adaptable colonial systems have been across time and space, and highlights the ways in which our experiences overlap.

A core insight of this study is that colonialism has never had a single form. Alongside the better-known overseas empires, land-based expansion, settler projects, assimilatory policies, and the weaponisation of identity and language operated as equally potent colonial tools. Eastern Europe’s experience becomes legible precisely when viewed through this broader analytical lens, one already familiar in many regions of the Global South. 

The report further argues that the end of formal empire did not end hierarchical power relations. Neo-colonial influence – whether expressed through debt dependency, infrastructure control, political clientelism, cultural narratives, or security arrangements – continues to constrain the sovereignty of states across continents. The dynamics that shape African or South Asian experiences today are deeply resonant with those that affect post-Soviet and Eastern European countries. Understanding these parallels helps reveal the global patterns of dependency and selective recognition that still structure international politics.

The case studies of India, Kenya, and Ukraine illustrate how different societies confronted similar systems of domination and continue to grapple with their consequences. They show that cultural recovery, economic restructuring, and asserting national agency are long-term processes that require not only domestic effort but also international understanding.

Ultimately, this report aims to create space for new forms of solidarity between the Global South and Eastern Europe. Its central message is that recognising shared experiences, while remembering their differences, allows for a more inclusive global conversation about colonialism, one that reflects the full diversity of those who lived under empire. Such recognition can foster more equitable partnerships and strengthen collective resistance to ongoing neo-colonial practices in the modern world.

 

INTRODUCTION

 

In a world still marked by the long shadow of colonialism, the search for shared historical experience is essential for solidarity, reflection, and meaningful cooperation. While Ukraine is rarely included in global conversations about colonialism, its historical experience under Russian imperial domination echoes, in many ways, the trajectories of countries across the so-called Global South. This report seeks to initiate a conversation about colonial legacies, their enduring consequences, and the potential for cross-regional understanding and action.

Nowadays, colonial legacies continue to shape international relations, economic structures, and cultural narratives. Therefore, a deeper exploration of anticolonialism provides essential context for understanding today’s geopolitical landscape and the ongoing struggles for sovereignty and self-determination. The present report aims to create a shared framework for understanding the colonial past in both the countries of the so-called Global South and Eastern Europe, emphasising the commonality of experience and attempting to build meaningful solidarity through this shared historical baggage.

This work identifies the structural consequences of colonial domination — political, economic, and social, as well as specific features of Russian colonialism as it pertains to Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic States. This study is particularly timely as discourses around decolonisation often exclude or marginalise experiences of Eastern European countries, which survived ‘coloniality without colonies’.

We seek to broaden the anti-colonial framework and create space for solidarity and better mutual understanding between previously disconnected anti-colonial movements and narratives. Moreover, we strive to understand how the consequences of past colonialism continue to influence countries around the globe and shape neo-colonialism today.

The core objectives of this report include:

• Establishing a shared understanding of colonialism and its global implications for international relations;
• Identifying commonalities between “classical” colonialism in the countries of the so-called Global South and the colonial practices Eastern European countries have endured;
• Analysing the long-term consequences of these experiences for modern statehood and international perception;

 

• Examining current forms of neo-colonialism that stem from historical colonial structures;
• Developing recommendations for joint efforts between Ukraine and countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to address and overcome colonial and neo-colonial legacies.

Through case studies focusing on the colonial experiences, the report will highlight both the distinct characteristics and shared patterns of colonial experience. By tracing these parallel histories, we aim to forge new pathways for mutual recognition and collective action within the ongoing global project of decolonisation.

 

XX CENTURY AS AN END TO EMPIRES:
GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS 

 

Colonialism was practiced by empires since antiquity, yet only during the modern times we started recognising all the implications it brings: economic exploitation and continued inequality, political domination, cultural and ideological control, violence, and coercion of the weaker, instrumentalisation of ethno-linguistic and religious cleavages. Modern thinkers and scholars often define colonialism as “a concerted practice of, in most cases, European States dividing up other inhabited parts of the world amongst themselves”. Though while speaking about colonialism one may often think about Spain or Portugal that in the XV century started colonising Americas, or Britain colonising India, or France, Belgium, and other European states dividing Africa, but these were not only Europeans who practiced colonialism. During the XIX-XX century, one could witness colonisations by Japan, the Ottoman Empire, or Russia. With differences in practice colonialisms had many similarities in their features. 

One of the most evident is economic exploitation. According to historian William Dalrymple, in 1600, when the East India Company was founded, Britain was generating 1.8% of the world’s GDP, while India was producing 22.5% of the world’s GDP (so, over 12 times more than Britain). At the peak of the British colonisation of India, these numbers were reversed. For example, before British colonial rule, India exported over 25% of the world’s textiles, in 1900 this number dropped to 2%. This happened due to the British ban on Indian textile exports. The same approach was used in many spheres. Nobel laureates J. Robinson and D. Acemoglu explain that modern implications of the economic exploitation during the period of colonialisms is the immense economic inequality we observe in the world today. “Retracing our steps 500 years, or back to the verge of this colonial project, we see little inequality and small differences between poor and rich countries,” they write.

Another example is Angola. As a Portuguese colony, Angola developed as one of the biggest coffee exporters in the world (in the early 1970s it ranked third or fourth in the world from year to year). The coffee boom in the country has been often seen as an indispensable part of colonial exploitation. Researcher Jelmer Vos points out that the expansion of coffee cultivation in the second half of the XIX century was mainly the work of independent African farmers who lived far from Portugal proto-colonial enclaves. But the development of coffee economy in the country was to the large extent connected with credits and loans provided by Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU) to Portuguese and Brazilian settlers, not Angolan peasant farmers. By the end of the XIX century BNU became the largest plantation owner in Angola (due to economic and environmental factors, plantation owners often bancrupted) and it campaigned for Portugal not to abolish slavery. Coffee was not an only commodity exploited under the colonial authorities in Angola. Another important example is diamond mining. Angola is a sixth in the world in terms of diamond production. During the colonial period the diamond mining industry was monopolised by Diamang company that had close ties to colonial administration and exploited local cheap labour often through forced labour practices.

Political domination of coloniser impacts state forms, institutions, and legal structures in the country. As with economic exploitation, it goes through path dependency. Thus, according to the research of La Porta et al (2008) legal systems in former British colonies are based on common law, which allows less state intervention than the legal system of the former French colonies. Politically, colonialism also influences the state elites. With new rulers, local elites are often oppressed and only those who are loyal can get their positions and influence.

Another legacy of colonial domination is instrumentalisation of ethno-linguistic and religious cleavages. For example, Indian Army was clearly segregated place. One of the biggest and longest existing conflicts between modern states — Kashmir conflict — is also a product of such an instrumentalisation of religious cleavages by British rulers during the colonisation of India.

Violence and coercion from the side of coloniser is what accompanies the process of colonisation. Thus, violence was a constant feature of Portuguese and Spanish colonialisms in Latin America. According to German sociologist and anthropologist Wolfgang Gabbert, the most impressive evidence of that are population losses among the locals (sometimes up to 90%) during the period of colonisation.

British colonial rule in India was established through the series of wars. One of the most painfully violent was the uprising of 1857, during which a series of rebellions against the colonisers erupted around the subcontinent. In India these uprisings are often referred as a “First War of Independence”. Anti-colonial struggles and uprisings took place within colonies from the very start of the era of empires, but this was XX century that brought the final nail into the coffin of classic imperialism. The end of the World War I marked an end to European land empires. This was at that time when the term “decolonisation” was first used in English in the context of newly independent states of Eastern Europe. The WWII made this process finally irreversible for those empires that had overseas dominions. As a result, the end of XX century empires launched the biggest process of state-making the world has witnessed. Thus, de-colonisation as a process “was embedded in geopolitics of the second half of the twentieth century”, meaning the effects of the Second World War, the impact of the Cold War and different forms of globalisation. Many scholars stress on intertwining of decolonisation and globalisation. Yet there are number of challenges in the process of theorising decolonisation: 

• Defining what is empire and whose empires are in question;
• Difficulties in establishing when or if de-colonisation was ever completed;
• Searching for the origins of decolonisation (was it a process on its own or launched by other factors).

Answering these questions are necessary, if we want to understand whether terms “de-colonisation”, “anti-colonialism” meant the same for the nations of Eastern Europe and the countries of the so-called Global South. For example, the Cold War inflected the politics of decolonisation as it intertwined the struggle for independence or liberation with the global competition between the US and the USSR. The Soviet Union portrayed itself as a global fighter against new ‘globalised Western Imperialism’. This was not just portraying, but active support of liberation struggle in Africa or Asia. Meanwhile it used colonisation instruments to oppress nations that were part of the USSR or were its so-called satellite-states. This controversial dichotomy now creates discrepancies in perception of Russia as a state that made itself single descendant of the USSR legacy, and in understanding this legacy of a totalitarian state, which through the support of oppressed aimed to fight with its Western enemies.

 

Unrecognised Features of Colonialism

In the second half of the twentieth century, the notion of colonialism got inextricably connected to the polarisation between the capitalist and the socialist blocs. Since the most egregious examples of colonial powers belonged to the Western camp, it was politically feasible for the Soviet camp to equate colonialism with capitalism and to present itself as a defender of the oppressed and a pioneer of the anticolonial movement. 

What is often overlooked, however, is that some of those very powers, under the guise of dismantling colonial legacies elsewhere, replicated colonial practices themselves, albeit in different forms and manifestations. However, it has to be remembered that the same powers use different approaches to different people. Approaches of the UK to the Caribbean and Ireland, as well as Russia’s to Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians, differ significantly. And often, when the assimilation policies fail to break resistance to the coloniser, the genocidal toolbox starts being used. This is evident, for instance, in the cases of the Great Famine in Ireland, the Holodomor (Great Famine) in Ukraine.

Beyond the familiar examples of overseas colonialism by Western empires, here we will concentrate on its expressions that are less frequently seen and acknowledged. Some of the examples here still belong to the history of Western colonialism. Yet some are the manifestations of a much less studied colonialism of the socialist bloc, done all the while colonising large swathes of territory in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and trying to erase entire peoples, such as the Crimean Tatars, while continuing to support the anti-colonial movements. This support, though, was provided not out of hate for colonialism that the USSR practised actively itself, but out of ideological hatred towards the West, in the spirit of a classical ‘an enemy of my enemy is my friend’ maxima.

These forms of colonialism, overlooked in mainstream discourse, manifest not only in their geographic proximity but also in the nuanced ways colonisers frame the identity of the colonised and the weaponisation of culture. They often evade recognition because they are entangled with narratives of national unity, civilising missions, or socialist internationalism. Their tools are not always chains or flags, but school curricula, censuses, and symbolic absorption.

 

Geographical factor

Traditionally, colonialism is associated with economic extraction (see case of India and Kenya), with little to no regard for the local development in the explored overseas territories lying far away from the heartland of the empire. This, however, has not always been the case. 

For the Russian and Ottoman empires, colonialism often entailed land expansion and subsequent assimilation (or attempts thereof) of the neighbouring peoples. A similar pattern can be seen in the Chinese expansion into Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia. Despite state-building often entailing territorial expansion, the extractive attitude toward both land and people, and the perception of their difference or inferiority, are what define the colonial relationship. 

Another example, invoking land expansion as opposed to an overseas one, would be settler colonialism within the seemingly ‘domestic’ realm, characteristic of modern-day Israel, and previously of the US, Canada, and Australia. Whereas in the case of the latter three, it is mixed with features of classic colonialism and later turns into creeping occupation, and thus is more rarely overlooked, in Israel’s case, it is still often left out of mainstream discussions of colonialism, particularly outside academic or activist circles. Policies of the Russian Empire and nowadays Russia towards Crimea is also an example of settler colonialism. Yet this example is rarely mentioned. Cambridge scholar Rory Finnin in his recent book “Blood of Others. Stalin’s Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity” explains how deportation of Crimean Tatars from their homeland in 1944 was a triumph of settler colonialism that opened the door to the Russian annexation of the Crimea in 2014, which is marked by bringing over 800,000 Russians over to Crimea, changing its demography.  

Similarly, so-called ‘internal colonisation’ targeted populations within controlled regions, causing unequal development, cultural oppression, and forced resettlement. It manifested, for instance, through Han migration and Soviet mass deportations policies, as well as ongoing systemic discrimination and assimilation policies in modern-day China and Russia. 

As we see, all these cases are different from the colonialism familiar to us from the Western empires. Yet, they still are examples of colonialism due to their rent-seeking nature and oppressive policies towards ‘the Other’, which will be examined in more detail below. 

 

Otherness and the Attitude towards It

Colonialism is typically understood in terms of subjugating not only overseas, but also racially different peoples. And yet, this is not always the case. The Russian Empire conquered not only racially, but also ethnically close peoples. The same applies to the English rule of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and the Chinese treatment of Tibetans and Uighurs.

Moreover, another important feature of colonialism is the treatment of ‘the Other’. It is commonly accepted that colonisers see the colonised as inferior and, hence, do not try to assimilate them. They concentrate on subjugating and exploiting the resources, not appropriating the culture of ‘the Other’ as theirs but rather trying to impose their own culture, religion, and way of life as a ‘superior’ one. Yet, this is not the case for many examples of colonisation. 

In cases when ‘the Other’ is not racially different, another form of colonialism is applied, manifested through superiority of familiarity, not of alienation. ‘The Other’ is seen as a more deficient version of ‘Self’, simpler, less intelligent, requiring guidance. The result of such an approach is the attempt to assimilate the colonised peoples into the populace of the colonial master, claiming they are one people. It also triggers cultural appropriation in its most structural form – the wholesale absorption of cultural and historical legacies into the coloniser’s national narrative, thus obliterating even the traces of ‘the Other’. For instance, it is very illustrative on the example of the series of pastels by Degas initially named ‘Russian dancers’, although it is clear from the garments of the depicted dancers that they are Ukrainian. Thus, named as the part of history, culture and society of the colonial master, the people just becomes invisible and slowly fades into the void. 

 

Weaponising the culture

Culture in a broad sense of encompassing language, education, history, art, etc. has long been a tool for colonisation, although a rather obscure one. In the case with the racially and ethnically similar ‘Other’, the colonisers tend to deny the existence of a separate history, culture, and language of the colonised. This is consistently argued by the Russian President Vladimir Putin, including in his 2021 article published half a year before the full scale invasion: ‘when I was asked about Russian-Ukrainian relations, I said that Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole’.

Education in the language of the colonial power was a tool of control, rooted in the perception of the colonisers as more educated, civilised, and competent. The same applies to the bigger opportunities granted to those renouncing their identity for the sake of the imperial one. Those who follow this path and reach prominence get encompassed in the imperial pantheon without any regard for their ethnical origin and self-identification. A great example of it would be the struggles of the Ukrainian writer Mykola Gogol who was torn between his Ukrainian identity and the imposed Russian one, that was being imposed as the only “right one” for the writer in the Russian empire. 

Much in the same way, the historical figures of the colonised have not many options to deal with the colonisation. They either get co-opted, as Gogol got – and serve the Empire, or get marginalised as funny provincial representatives of a less sophisticated culture reduced to mere folklore, or get killed as dangerous leaders of resistance – both political and cultural – like the Ukrainian Executed Renaissance of 1920s’ and early 1930s that rendered executions of thousands of Ukrainian poets, writers, historians, linguists and other representatives of intelligentsia by the Soviets. Late Kenyan intellectual and author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o in his seminal work “Decolonizing the Mind: the Politics of Language in African Literature” calls the cultural bomb — “biggest weapon of imperialism”. According to him cultural bomb is an annihilation of people’s belief “in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves… It makes them want to identify with that which is furthest removed from themselves; for instance, with other peoples’ languages rather than their own”.

As a result, when one looks at the colonised people, it indeed seems that their culture and history are inferior to those of the colonial power. There are literally no figures of comparable historical and cultural prominence: they are either marginal and less significant, or labelled as belonging to the imperial legacy, or simply killed. This, of course, creates longer-term consequences for the post-colonial perceptions of the already independent countries, which will be addressed later in this report.

The danger of these manifestations of colonialism is in redefining the identity of the colonised from within. And the people suffering from colonisation by similarity are oppressed not only politically and economically, but also culturally erased, being blended in with and by their oppressors and never being enough for a separate political representation. This has for centuries been the Russian approach to the lands of the so-called ‘near abroad’ be it Ukrainian, Belarusian, or Moldovan lands; in the past, this had also been the English approach to Ireland and the Japanese approach to Korea. In these overlooked cases, proximity replaces distance, and familiarity becomes the tool of domination. The colonised are not rendered inferior by being alien, but by being seen as failed versions of the coloniser. This erasure by assimilation – political, cultural, and historical – renders entire peoples not just invisible, but ontologically denied.

Different forms of colonialism have given rise to the more modern neo-colonial influence that is grounded precisely in the practices elaborated by classical colonialism. Building upon these overlooked features of classical colonialism, we now turn to its modern manifestations, which reveal the enduring structures of domination in a formally decolonised world.

NEO-COLONIALISM IN A MULTI-POLAR WORLD

 

While colonialism is widely seen as a relic of the past, neo-colonialism has emerged in more intricate and concealed forms, practised not only by former imperial powers but also by previously colonised states that have since risen to regional or global prominence. For the purposes of this section, neo-colonialism refers to the practices through which both former colonial powers and rising global actors continue to exert control over nominally sovereign states. Unlike classical colonialism, which relied on territorial conquest and administrative control, neo-colonialism functions through financial systems, cultural narratives, and institutional levers without imposing rule by force but rather fostering dependencies.

This section examines how global and regional powers, both former colonial empires and newer geopolitical actors, continue to exert disproportionate influence over other states through economic, political, military, and cultural tools. The section highlights recurring patterns of asymmetry and dependency that persist in the international system, resonating across the experiences of both the Global South and post-Soviet/Eastern European spaces.

The section will start with exploring the shifting influence of both traditionally colonial and emerging neo-colonial powers to demonstrate how the dynamics of influence change over time, yet the patterns remain largely the same. Further, the section will delve into ways to exert power through a range of political, economic, cultural, and military means. Though less visible, these forms of influence are no less potent in shaping the destinies of postcolonial nations and perpetuating global hierarchies of power.

 

Shifting centres of power

Although formal empires have largely vanished, the gravitational pull of former colonial powers remains deeply embedded in global political, economic, and cultural systems. Former colonial powers have different approaches towards their former overseas territories: from a rather hands-off approach of Belgium to the ‘historical responsibility’ of France. Of course, the rhetoric of the former colonial powers that remain major players in their ex-colonies has changed significantly. It is wrapped in a coat of partnership, yet the means remain the same: military presence, economic dominance, soft power projection, and political networks. 

Although former colonial masters may see themselves as a stabilising force in the region, increasingly, their presence is seen as unwanted due to the persistent image of such presence as predatory and hypocritical. This is evident from the declining influence of France in its ex-colonies in Africa, but also from the ex-Soviet states’ urge to move away from Russia (albeit at different paces, with different success, and different consequences). From the military coups in Chad, Mali, and Niger, and the withdrawal of French troups from Cote d’Ivoire, to the passing Armenian parliament law on starting the EU accession process – it can be seen that former colonial subjects seek to minimise and leverage the influence of their former colonial masters.

Amid the waning influence of traditional colonial empires, a new cohort of actors has emerged, engaging in neo-colonial practices and exerting power over the weaker states. Here, examples of China, India, and even the UAE are relevant. Despite once being colonised themselves, these states are now expanding the toolkits of their global influence, including through neo-colonial means. 

For China, this manifests through the Belt and Road Initiative — debt-driven infrastructure projects involving Chinese labour that side-line local economies, as well as through the extraction of natural resources in Africa and Latin America under long-term leases. For instance, Chinese companies account for 80% of the cobalt mining output in the Democratic Republic Congo, allegedly using child and forced labour, or the notorious 100-year lease of the Sri-Lankan port of Hambantota. India, in turn, grows as a regional and global actor, exercising dominance in neighbouring states. Similarly, the UAE, despite being geographically small, aspires to grow its influence in the region, particularly through military interventions in the Middle East and Africa (e.g. Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, etc.) and securing long-term control over strategic port infrastructure in politically fragile states such as Somalia and Angola.

Characteristically, both ‘old’ and ‘new’ colonial powers leverage cultural and informational soft power — from Confucius Institutes and Bollywood to Russia Today — to shape perceptions, legitimise presence, and counter competing narratives.

Yet, the toolkit of neo-colonial powers definitely evolved as compared to the old colonial empires, with both wielding influence through a modernised toolkit of control. We will examine its different facets below. 

 

Political influence

Obviously, political influence remains a key tool in the neo-colonial approach to the lesser powers. Its expressions could vary. One facet of it would be a perception of other countries as underdeveloped, corrupt, inefficient, and requiring guidance through the imposition of the experience of a more successful counterparts without any regard to local specifics, which is highly common for the attitude of the modern Western countries, especially the US, to countries to which the US provides international aid. 

Another key feature of the neo-colonial approach is the preservation of colonial-era thinking that grants former powers – or even new hegemons – perceived historical right to exert influence over certain geographic regions. To a degree, it is a mix of classical colonialism, which effectively establishes direct control over the country and neo-colonial manifestation of power, exerting this control through puppet regimes and political parties. Most countries resort to this approach from time to time, yet it is especially characteristic of the Russian attitude towards the ‘near abroad’, which it sees as its rightful property, albeit with redundant legal nuances in the form of the quasi-independence (in Russian view) of those states. This is especially evident in the infamous article by President Putin on Ukraine as of 2021 or of the treatment of Kazakh lands as ‘presents’ to Kazakhstan from the Russian Empire. 

Overall, both ways of dealing with it require strong lobby groups and networks in the countries that a neo-colonial power is trying to influence. It also normally results in the clientelism of the country’s ruling elites, dependence on the advisors from a greater power, and eroding autonomy and ability to conduct sovereign decision-making as such. However, the neo-colonial approach is rooted not only in political but also in economic means. 

 

Economic control

Economic control manifests through dependencies shaped by the greater financial, technological, and institutional power of neo-colonial actors. It might be through the building of the global supply chains or through creating production sites in places with cheap labour, low environmental standards and abundant resources that can be exploited – which is the way many Global South countries have been treated by many of the Global North. 

It can also be manifested through the extraction of the raw materials of their own regions and the development of energy dependency of the fossil fuel customers, which is characteristic of Russia. Rich regions of Russia in Siberia, such as Yakutia, are one of the richest regions of Russia resource-wise, but the population there is living in extreme poverty, as all the resources are being exploited and taken out to serve the metropole. As for the energy resources, Russia’s oil and gas have created significant dependencies in Europe, with Russian gas supplies accounting for a staggering 85% of European pipeline energy imports in 2000 and 45% of pipeline imports in 2023. And even after Europe started working on decreasing its reliance on Russian energy carriers, some countries in Europe and beyond are still remarkably dependent on Russia in terms of servicing their nuclear power plants and providing gas supplies to countries like Hungary and Armenia, making them more compliant with Russia’s state policies. 

A vivid example is also the debt-trap diplomacy of China. Famously, the Sri-Lankan port of Hambantota was leased to China for a hundred years as a result of Sri Lanka’s inability to service its debt. Similarly, China’s development of infrastructure in exchange for access to the raw materials of the country, engagement of Chinese contractors, and procurement of Chinese materials for these infrastructure projects, side-lining local producers and contractors, has a distinct colonial feature about itself. 

Separately, some scholars see the work of the international institutions, such as the World Bank and the IMF, as an example of neo-colonial practice. However, unlike the Chinese way of lending money without prior conditions and with high interest rates with an aim of concluding long-term leases when the lender fails to restructure the debt, the IMF and the World Bank normally put forward political and economic conditions to push certain policies within the country. Reliant on the international institutions’ support, these countries are forced to conduct certain reforms, which are deemed as sanitising by the IMF and the World Bank, but might be hugely unpopular in the country in questiondue to a lack of awareness of the local context.

Economic ways to exert influence are also rooted in the power asymmetry between the coloniser and the colonised, as well as in depriving the colonised of sovereignty and opportunities for autonomous development through the creation of large structural dependencies. A similar approach is relevant for the building of a military presence. 

 

Military presence and security dependence 

Security alliances between stronger and weaker are hardly anything new in global history. Despite the official sovereign-vassal and protectorate relations having remained a thing of the past, the nature of these relations has largely remained the same. 

In this vein, the West mostly relies on building strategic alliances and thus strengthening its global posture. Whereas in some cases, this may be done willingly on a quid pro quo basis – like with the NATO expansion to the East, in which it is seen as the protection against the Russian threat; in some cases, the military presence, although necessary, may still be perceived by some as unwanted and predatory, an example of which could be the case of the US presence in Afghanistan (2001-2021) that was increasingly seen as occupation by the local population. As quoted in the article by the NATO Association of Canada with a reference to the 2020 survey by the Institute for War and Peace Studies, 46% of Afghans had wanted the US and NATO troops to leave once the deal with the Taliban was reached.

The approach of Russia and China is more outright aggressive, with China building artificial islands in the South China Sea and creating maritime bases in African cities, and Russia leveraging state-connected private military companies in the regional conflicts, as well as extensively engaging in cyber warfare in the countries it would like to see colonially subjugated.

The variety of neo-colonial tools is not limited to the tools of hard power only. Some of them are neatly embedded in the much softer forms of influence. 

 

Soft power leverage

It is only natural for each country to maximise their own cultural and informational presence to increase the country’s recognition, reputation and thus strengthen the positive attitude towards the country globally. Yet, there is a cultural dimension of colonialism that is well recognised among a plethora of academics, with one of the most important works on it being Edward Said’s ‘Culture and Imperialism’. Said argues that the control of the metropoly over a colony can be reached through various means – including through culture, and is aimed at establishing or maintaining the influence of the empire. For the purposes of this study, we will adhere to this understanding of the colonialism. 

There are several key ways to exert colonial power through culture, namely, through (1) building and maintaining hierarchies of values that creates cultural dominance of the coloniser, (2) formulating a myth of coloniser’s universality as opposed to limitations of the colonised, (3) functioning of the cultural institutions of the metropole in a way that makes the centre importent and valuable for an external observer and the periphery – almost invisible, and (4) representing colonised cultures as provincial and inferior. 

What makes such influence neo-colonial in nature is attempts to maintain hierarchy and preserve control over the country in question and its dependence on the coloniser, as well as present the world with a certain worldview of the both the coloniser and the colonised through the lens carefully constructed by the empire itself.

The cultural colonisation is expressed through marking of the territory with monuments and topographic names – causing wide discussions all over the world from Ukraine to South Africa as to whether monuments to Catherine II or to Cecil Rhodes can have any place in the already independent states. It is evident even through the use of the language of the coloniser as the language of the more enlightened, worldly and professional as opposed to the local more provincial and limited languages, as argued by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o in his latest book.

Traditionally, soft power is also exercised through a variety of cultural institutions, varying from the British Council to Russian World foundations. Yet, can every cultural institution be seen as a neo-colonial tool of control? Hardly so. But some of them are seen not as mere means to strengthening the study of language or film screenings, but as overt ways to spread historic and geopolitical narratives in the host country, and exercise power over the former colony in a subtle way. Importantly, cultural institutions may lay war for exerting ‘hard power’ apart from the obvious ‘soft power’. For instance, some of the institutions in question are used to conduct espionage activities and recruit potential intelligence assets. A notable example would be the banning of activities of Confucius Institutes in many countries due to perceived hostile covert activities carried out by them. The same is true for such ostensibly religious institutions as the Russian Orthodox Church, famously working with Russian security services, strengthening their grip over populations in Russia’s former colonies through propaganda dissemination and intelligence gathering.

Naturally, there are many more avenues to exercise influence through soft power. But one thing is common for all of them: they serve as neo-colonial tools of subtle control of ‘the metropole’ over ‘the periphery’, perpetuating relations of subjugation of old.

Despite the world having moved on from the era of colonial empires, more subtle forms of influence continue to reflect both former dependencies and form new ones. Surely, very often, neo-colonial powers wrap their meddling in the other countries’ affairs in a form of cultural exchanges, security protection, or international and humanitarian aid. Yet, clearly, it is frequently not seen by the recipient country in the same way. 

Whether having deep historic roots or having formed relatively recently, colonial and neo-colonial practices continue to form our perceptions of whole regions and influence geopolitical dynamics globally, shaping the world we live in. In the next section, we will take a look at the emerging trends in the perception of formerly colonised powers and the consequences of such perceptions. 

CONSEQUENCES OF COLONIAL AND NEO-COLONIAL PRACTICES FOR MODERN GEOPOLITICS 

 

Having examined both classical and less acknowledged forms of colonialism, as well as modern expressions of neo-colonialism, we now turn to their enduring consequences. This section explores how these historical patterns continue to shape geopolitical realities, influence national identities, and affect the way states are perceived on the global stage. Although the concept of ‘spheres of influence’ may seem dated, it continues to shape geopolitical realities, casting a shadow over how states are perceived and how their autonomy is constrained by more powerful actors in political, economic, and even cultural spheres.

For instance, in the case of the Russian empire and later the Soviet Union, some post-Soviet states were rather successful in drifting away from the former colonial master, while others were more wrapped into the imperial embrace and hence are still seen by many as belonging to Russia’s sphere of rightful interests. Similar attitudes are also encountered in France’s attitude towards its former colonies in Africa and in the US treatment of the Latin American states. We will examine the implications of this colonial lens on independent states globally, explore how countries resist colonial and neo-colonial practices, and analyse how perceptions evolve over time, proving that ‘spheres of influence’ are not set in stone.

 

Implications for national identity and representation

The legacy of these forms of colonialism lingers in ongoing struggles over language rights, cultural ownership, and the very ability of formerly colonised peoples to assert distinct political identities on the global stage. 

For instance, in the Russian war against Ukraine, many actors around the world see the claim to the ‘historically Russian’ lands, without any regard for the Ukrainian history and culture, as it is overlooked in the imperial light of the Russian empire. The language issue is emblematic of many colonial experiences. In Africa, for example, local languages were often erased in favour of the imperial language. Similarly, the Ukrainian language has historically been dismissed as a mere ‘distorted’ version of Russian – of which an illustrative example is the works of Timofey Florinsky. 

In terms of identity, it also goes as far as labelling the cultural heritage of the colonised or formerly colonised territories as one belonging to the empire itself, sending their original cultural identity into oblivion – much as it happened with the already mentioned works of Degas, or with the sacred Kyivan shrines taken to Moscow. A quite recent example is the legal dispute on the so-called ‘scythian gold’ between Russia and Ukraine: the treasures from Crimean museums sent on an exhibition to the Netherlands were claimed by Russia as its own, with the Supreme Court of the Netherland finally ordering for the items to be returned to Ukraine as its rightful owner.

This oblivion causes the world to be blind towards whole peoples, not recognising their existence as a separate entity and not recognising their right to self-determination. If one is just a consistuent part of a larger state – it’s harder to see one as fit for self-governance. For instance, the consequences of colonisation by many countries – from Britain to modern day Israel can also be seen in the contested status of Palestine that is struggling to receive full international recognition. And some regions, like Tibet, are still unable to get any sort of representation at all, being absorbed by the mighty China.

The broader consequences of the implications mentioned above are the distorted perception in global media and academia, shaping the understanding of the world of certain regions through a colonial lens and distorting their understanding and predefining actions toward them in the international arena in a way that indulges former or current colonial powers. This is evident even in the reported claims by the US officials facilitating peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, and justifying the demands to cede Ukrainian lands by the claims that the Donetsk region is Russian-speaking – a point of view giving zero consideration to the violent and oppressive history of russification of Ukrainian lands. 

Yet, in many ways, the struggle against colonialism and neo-colonialism is still ongoing around the globe. Many of the nations have been rather successful in dealing with its colonial past, even if the echoes of it continue to haunt their internal and external politics. Thus, we will look into the ways countries has successfully navigated the process of overcoming their colonial pasts. 

 

Examples of successful resistance strategies

The geopolitical choices that the countries make help them overcome their colonial past. For instance, Poland and the Baltic states, having swiftly joined the EU and NATO following the restoration of their independence, are hardly seen by anyone as the Russian sphere of influence anymore. The domestic strategy for dealing with the colonial past has also been successful in the sense of a rather resolute policy of marking this colonial past as hostile, unwelcome, and forming a very distinct narrative of occupation rather than “happy joint time together”. 

Another resistance strategy has traditionally been hedging – maintaining relationships with multiple powerful actors to avoid domination by any one, which is rather common for Central Asia and the Middle East. Balancing between different actors does not allow for a definite placing of the country in question in some great power orbit. This is the way Kazakhstan tries to hedge between Russia and China, and the Middle Eastern countries between Russia, China, and the US. 

And the most successful strategy of all is the political transformation of empires, where colonial structures are abandoned in favour of new relationships of parity. It would not even come to anyone’s mind to label the current independent India or China as belonging to the UK’s sphere of interests. Surely, part of the reason is that China is already a great power, and India is very close to it. Yet, the same would be true for South Africa or Australia, which is a strong middle power, but still would not be labelled as anyone’s sphere of influence. 

And the reason for it is that the empires that previously controlled all those states have collapsed, transferring to being middle powers, which do not claim the imperial legacy. And that is the answer for some of the empires – both colonial and neo-colonial – that are still standing. Of course, it does not mean a full dismantling of the state, but rather a change of policies and abandoning of the colonial attitude to the world, allowing for the building of more just relations of parity with their former colonies. 

As we see, there are many ways in which colonised states fight for being seen as autonomous geopolitical entities. Yet, we have to explore whether they actually result in changing the perception of ex-colonies. 

 

Changing perceptions of ex-colonies

Some resistance strategies coupled with political and geopolitical decisions proved to be more efficient over time. This is evident from the shifting perceptions of certain countries and regions in terms of them being somebody’s ‘sphere of influence’.

For instance, many of the ex-Soviet republics are still seen as Russian puppets. But this is definitely not the case for the colonies of the tsarist regime, such as Poland and Finland, which are not seen as Russia’s sphere of influence despite once being a part of the Empire and now sharing a border with it. Russia itself seems to have forgotten that it once owned Poland and Finland, and exercised significant influence over the former during the Soviet times as part of the socialist bloc. It labels ex-Soviet republics as ‘near abroad’, essentially outlining the borders of its sphere of influence, yet it came to terms with the fact that some of its former colonies are lost forever. Similarly, the Baltic states – Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia – although still labelled as ‘near abroad’, are hardly perceived by anyone as the Russian sphere of influence.

The same is true for many ex-colonies of the Western empire. While we mentioned some examples of the shifting perceptions in the previous subsection, it is also relevant for the fading Western, and especially, French, influence in Africa, where, as a result of military coups (often supported by Russia), the Western domination has faltered. Meanwhile, the contest of the great powers over control or influence over less developed territories actually remains the example of the same colonial logic. And what some people may see as support to the anti-colonial movement may actually be the attempt of the great power to expand the limits of its influence in the global arena. 

THREE CASES OF COLONIALISM

 

India

Since XVIII century India had been ruled by East India Company, which through the treaties with local princes and conquest colonised the vast territories of South Asia. This is how British rule came to India. The period of colonisation was a period of strong economic exploitation. According to the historian Mike Davies, in 1820, Europe’s share of world GDP was 26.6% and India’s 15.7%; by the end of the century figures have slightly changed for the side of Europe — 40.3% and 11%, yet in 1951 they were — 29.7% and 3.8% (India had five times smaller GDP than a century before). Europe’s share of world manufacturing output in 1830 was 34.1% and India’s 17.6%; in 1900 Europe’s was 63.0% and India’s 1.7%. 

Over the period of colonisation India became a market for British products and Indian farmers produced opium, cotton, wheat, and rice for the world market at the price of their own food. This led, as Davies explains, to severe famines. For the last quarter of XIX century grain exports from India rose from 3 million to 10 million tons. Also, colonisers “deindustrialised” India. According to Collste, before British rule India had exported textiles; afterwards — raw cotton for manufacturing in England. Also, proportions of workers in agriculture and manufacturing changed: by the late XIX century 75% of the population was dependent on agriculture, and the number of people in manufacturing dropped down significantly.

The ‘divide and rule’ policy was actively practiced by British colonisers as well. Many scholars agree that the current long-standing conflict between India and Pakistan was born as a legacy of these practices by colonisers. Thus, after the anti-colonial revolt of 1857, colonial government understood that to maintain in power, it needs to use the religious cleavages between the communities in the country. During the war of 1857 they fought alongside each other against the coloniser. This is when distinctive treatment of Muslims and Hindus starts. Also, both communities got an opportunity to “let of the steam” via creating the separate parties: Indian Muslim League and Indian National Congress.

Though many Indians became servants of the empire, period of colonialism was a period of severe violence. The 1857 uprising was particular violent and led to over 100 thousand people killed. During the famous Salt March led by Mahatma Gandhi in March 1930 over 30 thousand people were jailed. The decision of British authorities to put the high tax on salt — an indispensable product in tropical climate both for dietary means as well as preserving food — was also an example of economic exploitation. Yet the civil disobedience by Indians to that policy was cracked with violent methods.

Yet after India became independent, it preserved good relations with its metropole — Great Britain. Even in India, colonialism’s legacy is a mixed issue for many, where one can name both good and bad sides. However, this was this legacy, together with Cold War rivalries between the USSR and the USA that paved the way to the non-alignment movement which has an influence on India’s foreign affairs and geopolitics perceptions till these days, when Moscow is perceived as a partner who helped with industrialization after the decolonization. 

 

Kenya 

Many researchers point that British colonisation of Kenya provides a classic example of ‘divide and rule practices’ of the empire. Starting from tribal segregation to “protect Africans from European encroachment”, this approach also moved to political arena. All the political organisations that emerged in the early colonial era (beginning of the XX century) were restricted to represent the specific tribes. Yet later parties did not have this restriction.

Colonisation of Kenya was also an example of settler colonialism as European and British settlers occupied the best and the most fertile lands, for example in the Great Rift Valley, which later led to conflicts with local population. Researchers also mention the so-called githaka customary right to which locals were refering as to their right for the separate lands where colonisers settled down. At the same time, European settlers saw the locals as their labour force.

As besides the economic exploitation, the system of the racial segregation appeared, similar to apartheid in South Africa, local Kikuyu tribe felt humiliated and angered. All this paved the way to the Mau Mau movement (1952-1960) and resistance. As researchers point out, during the resistance Great Britain was extremely cautious (though from 30 thousand to 100 thousand people were detained by colonial authorities as a result of resistance) as Kenya at that time was its last “stronghold” in Africa and a strategic military base. As the USSR was actively engaging in Africa, Western powers worried that Mau Mau resistants may look for the Soviet support.

Language was also used as a tool of colonisation in Kenya and current language policy where English is an official language is a colonial legacy. According to linguistics researcher Wendo Nabea, “the colonial language policy was always inchoate and vacillating”, yet for Kenyans English meant the possibility of “white-collar jobs”. 

Both Kenya and India preserved good relations with the British Empire. This included preserving English as an official language, also the political system and institutions remained the same. Till these days British Army has its military base in Kenya. Based in Nanyuki, 200 km north of Nairobi, British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK) is the British Army’s largest contingent of soldiers in Africa. BATUK regularly conducts joint training with the Kenyan Defence Forces as well as supports other programs.

 

Ukraine

Was Ukraine a colony of Russia? This question often appears since Russia’s full-scale invasion. Ukrainian historians Yaroslav Hrytsak and Yurii Shapoval say that it was, but “the wrong one”. And this is the case of Ukraine where we return to the necessity of empire definition. So, in most of the case we discuss actively through the post-colonail paradigm, empires have overseas dominions. In case of Ukraine it was bordering the empire, had close phonetically Slavic language and Orthodox religious tradition. There are also geographical and historical reasons that influence the empire-dominion dichotomy in case of Russia and Ukraine or Ukraine and the USSR, according to Hrytsak and Shapoval: “The Russian Empire subjugated a large part of the Eurasian continent, including the Eurasian steppe, which stretched from Manchuria to the territory of modern Bulgaria and Romania. This steppe has long been the site of mass migrations of tribes and peoples from East to West. In Europe, mass migration of peoples ended in the Middle Ages, and ethnic borders were more or less stable. This was not the case along the Eurasian steppe, including its western part, the Russian-Ukrainian border.” Even in the XIX century, mass migration was ongoing in these territories. All this led to different visions on the territories from the perspective of the coloniser and colonised: some territories that Russians would see as their metropoly, for Ukrainians would be a colony.

In classic empires centres are always more developed than the periphery. In case of the Russian empire (and then the USSR), especially if we talk about the Western periphery, the situation was totally different. This Western periphery became the cradle for new colonial elites and shared by Ukrainians and Russians Orthodox religion paved the way to the perception of Ukrainians as “the same” as Russians. Ukrainians often were the servants of the empire. This was to some extent similar to how Indians served the British Empire through relocation to its dominions and working for colonisers in South Africa or Kenya, etc. However, Ukrainians were able to have high-profile jobs. In the XVIII century a signigicant proportion of the imperial elites in the Russian Empire were Ukrainians, namely, Feofan Prokopovych, Kyrylo and Oleksii Rozumovskys, and others. Having this in mind, the question whether Ukraine could be seen as a colony from such a perspective, would be valid. But the answer is simple: Ukrainians were never allowed to have the leading positions on the territory of Ukraine. So, this is the important paradox Hrytsak and Shapoval point to: if in the British Empire Indians could have the leading positions on their soil, in the Russian Empire, and later in the USSR — Ukrainians could do that only outside of it. Yet, this peculiar issue could also be seen as an example of ‘divide and rule’ practice.

Another issue was suppressing Ukraine as a nation with “Russian” own high culture. Different folk traditions during both the Russian Empire and the USSR were welcomed and allowed, though all that represented ‘high culture’ — science, literature, etc. — had to be only in Russian. Linguists now often point to the “artificial convergence” of Ukrainian and Belarusian to Russian. As all three languages are of Slavic origin, similar words were introduced in the dictionaries, so that to show unity of the three languages. There were also a number of abolishments of the Ukrainian language during the Russian Empire.

GLOBAL SOUTH AND EASTERN EUROPE: ANTI-COLONIAL STRUGGLE AND DIS-CONNECTED NARRATIVES 

 

When one talks about decolonisation and anti-colonial struggle, this would still rarely mention Eastern Europe, though this is the region which started the process of decolonisation that later left its imprint on the whole XX century. There are plenty of reasons for that, but the most important are the following:

• Anti-colonial struggle both in the countries of the so-called Global South as well as Eastern Europe was mostly going over “different storylines of the world history”. Though there were examples of mutual support. In the Eastern Europe they were mainly instrumentalised by the ruling regimes. Thus, many African freedom fighters (from People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, MPLA), Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), African National Congress (ANC), South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) trained in 1960s on the territory of Ukraine (near cities of Odesa and Simferopol), Ukrainian engineers were developing African and South Asian infrastructure. One of the fathers of modern Ukrainian diplomacy Hennadii Udovenko as a deputy head of the UN Special Committee against apartheid made a significant contribution to the elimination of apartheid.
• Ideology also influenced the perception. Though prominent Trinidadian anti-colonial campaigner and author George Padmore compared German occupation of Czechoslovakia with Italian occupation of Abyssinia in the 1930s, he stressed in his manifesto that “Czechoslovakia in 1938 is being used as a pawn by the Imperialists in the same way as Belgium was in 1914 – to win our sympathy and pity”. He appealed to his comrades to use this situation for their purposes.
• Ukraine and other states that were part of the Soviet Union and geographically are in the Eastern Europe have still been often omitted from the discussion on anti-colonial struggle and decolonisation. One of the reasons is the Soviet legacy and the USSR as a strongest opponent of ‘imperialistic West’ that supported the oppressed in the Global South which was a collective legacy, yet monopolised these days by Moscow. Another one as we show in the report is that Ukraine often could be seen as “a wrong colony”.

Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, internal politics of India twice was shaken by the issues of anti-colonialism in the Eastern Europe. Both the Hungarian Revolution (1956) and the Prague Spring (1968) got the public support in India, and the Soviet invasion to Hungary and Czechoslovakia was widely publicly criticised in the country, yet officially India did not strongly condemn both events. 

Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru stated in 1956 during his speech at the UN General Assembly: “We see today in Egypt as well as in Hungary both human dignity and freedom outraged and the force of modern arms used to suppress peoples and to gain political objectives. Old colonial methods, which we had thought, in our ignorance, belonged to a more unenlightened age, are revived and practised”. Though Prime Minister Nehru mentioned “old colonial methods” that “are revived and practiced”, in both cases of Suez Crisis and Hungarian Uprising, the overall attention to both cases was different. If in the case of Egypt, India engaged itself as a fellow non-aligned country and supported nationalisation of the Suez Channel by Egypt, in case of Hungary Prime Minister Nehru chose to condemn the Soviet Invasion only after his ambivalence on the case was questioned at home.

Contacts and exchange of experience between the state of the so-called Global South has been developing from the start of the anti-colonial struggle. For example, though Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy in South Africa is now more and more often seen as controversial, it is there, where he coined his satyagraha practice — form of non-violent resistance. Indian National Congress — first national liberation movement and then dominant party in India — was an inspirational model for the African National Congress (ANC) — a liberation movement and till nowadays the leading political party of South Africa. For Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi was “the archetypal anticolonial revolutionary”. As he wrote: “Both Gandhi and I suffered colonial oppression, and both of us mobilised our respective peoples against governments that violated our freedoms.”

Colonialism in South Africa had unique features and often is described as a special phenomenon or ‘Colonialism of a special type’. Unlike in other colonised countries, where colonists had seen themselves as a part of ruling elite with a home country to which they would later return, in South Africa the colonists, in particular the Afrikaners, had seen themselves as natives, denying the actual citizens the rights of citizenship of their country. Yet the anti-colonial struggle has very much in common with what could have been witnessed in India before 1947.

For the countries of Central East Europe, this is also the case. With national movements that later transformed themselves into catch-all parties as Sajudis in Lithuania or Rukh in Ukraine, newly liberated countries were fighting for national revival. These political formations resembled National Congress parties in India or South Africa. Though one can find many similarities, yet to look for them, a deep understanding of history based on sources by the oppressed should be used.

CONCLUSION 

Despite obvious progress in fighting colonialism, this issue continues to haunt the world with grave infringements against nations and races influencing their development to this day. Yet, the ultimate question remains whether, lamenting colonial history, we have truly abandoned the practices in question and whether we are genuinely working on overcoming their consequences and checking the lens with which we look at the world and shape perceptions of it. 

Big part of the last century was marked by the Cold War, which intertwined the struggle for liberation in the colonised nations with the global competition between the US and the USSR. At the same time propaganda and ideology made the USSR an exemplar system for the newly liberated from colonialism countries. This image blurred the violent colonial practices the Soviet regime used to oppress its own citizens, often continuing the colonial policies from the tsarist period. 

Therefore, sharing the experiences expressed by those who see themselves as being oppressed in different parts of the world is so important. Though tactics might have differed, the goals of the imperialists are often the same. Thus, sharing the experience of the countries of Eastern Europe and Global South shows that though countries lived under different regimes, they experienced similar examples of oppression: economic exploitation, ‘divide and rule’ practices, cultural oppression.

As colonial legacies made the further development “dependent” on the previous path, it has a significant influence on current geopolitics and may define approaches by the country in its foreign affairs, economy, defence, etc., as we show through the three cases of Kenya, India, and Ukraine in this report. Moreover, sharing and understanding old colonial experiences may help to better define current neo-colonial practices, often used by the states who had the experience of oppression themselves. 

Furthermore, colonial experiences often influence modern day decision-making and international affairs in the countries that bear colonial burden on them. Indian experts and politicians often explain that the position of their country on Russia and relations with Moscow are the result of the support India got from the USSR after its independence, namely the role of the Soviet Union in industrialization of the country, technology transfer and arms trade. Same often can be heard in Egypt, that the Soviet support is what facilitate the current perception of trust to Moscow. Russia as a country that portrays itself as a USSR successor often manipulates with the colonial legacy. Thus, using the anti-French sentiments in some African states, and focusing on disinformation in favour of Russia, Moscow intensifies its role in the Sahel region. Understanding the roots of the behavior of some countries allows us to understand better which narratives to use while cooperating with them, and also where the problematic issues are.

 

 

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The publication is prepared within the project the “Global Partnerships: Expert Diplomacy 2.0”. This publication was compiled with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation. Its content is the exclusive responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the International Renaissance Foundation.