Spying on the competition with AI

With Touadéra and his Russian mates, we thought we’d seen it all when it came to madness, but we were in for more surprises. According to the American company Anthropic, in virtually every African country where there are contingents of Russian mercenaries, opponents and other troublemakers are being monitored by an AI called Claude, which acts as a vehicle for pro-Russian propaganda.
According to the American firm, Claude is said to be using the Russian embassy in Bangui and Radio Lengo Songo (funded by Russia) to broadcast content favourable to the government, Russian soft power and anti-French messages.
Anthropic reports that certain arrests of prominent figures – which may seem incomprehensible to the general public but who are hostile to the Touadéra regime – are allegedly orchestrated by the AI Claude. As a pretext, Claude portrays the victims in online newspapers, on the radio or on social media as either proxies for France or Western intelligence services, or as plotting a coup against Touadéra. They are even said to go so far as to suggest that members of the opposition are armed and preparing a coup; fortunately, according to Anthropic, the AI ‘Claude’ reportedly refused to take part in this scheme, as it contravened its security protocols.
It should be noted, however, that the report does not disclose the names of the opposition figures under surveillance, nor the exact nature of the data collected, let alone the recipients of these files.
Speaking on behalf of the opposition, which has been made aware of these facts, Martin Ziguélé comments: “We have seen this since 2020, with the CPC’s attack on Bangui. Curiously, several media outlets have really done everything they could to create supposed links between certain opposition leaders and the CPC”, he adds, “there have also been attacks against the opposition claiming that we are in the pay of foreign powers. Furthermore, there was the attempt to pass a law claiming that there are foreign agents in the country, and so on… All of this stems from the Wagner Group’s activities, as does this latest revelation.”
As for the Russians in Bangui, Dmitri Sytyi describes the allegations as “vague, lacking in detail or evidence”. Finally, Anthropic, which does not merely observe passively, claims to have detected and disrupted various operations in Bangui between December 2025 and August 2026, such as deleting fake accounts involved in the shenanigans and strengthening detection systems.

Analysis by Antoinette KODROGUÉ | LNC

For: FatimaLamineHebdo
Date: 28 September 2026
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