
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union sought to establish ties with Africa based on shared economic interests and a lack of trust in the West. The USSR invested significant resources in securing the loyalty of African regimes. Soviet cultural and trade missions were sent to friendly countries on the Black Continent, while minerals were exported from Africa to the Soviet Union. African students were educated in Soviet universities, and upon their return, they expressed positive opinions about the Soviet Union, spread socialist ideology, or held positions of power.

However, the USSR was not always able to achieve its goals through communist propaganda and money; sometimes it had to use agents, disinformation, and weapons.

In 1961, diplomatic relations between France and the United States were not going well. U.S. President John F. Kennedy almost canceled a state visit to Paris scheduled for May. Neither the United States nor France knew at the time that the rift was the result of disinformation planted by KGB agents to discredit Washington and sow distrust among Western allies.

At the time, the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) had been waging a seven-year war against France, which resulted in the country's independence from colonial rule. By January 1961, the FLN had begun negotiations with the French government, but a group of French generals opposed the peace agreement and attempted to overthrow de Gaulle in April.

In the midst of this chaos, Soviet agents published an article titled "Was the Military Coup in Algeria Prepared in Consultation with Washington?" in the April issue of the Italian left-wing newspaper Paese Sera. The article claimed that one of the coup leaders, General Maurice Chall, was a CIA agent, as he had served at NATO headquarters and held a pro-American stance.

The fake news planted by the KGB in Paese Sera spread quickly and widely. The main Soviet media outlets claimed that the CIA was supporting the rebellion. Then, the French news newspaper Le Monde picked up the story, writing, "It has now been established that American agents were encouraging Challe."

The paper later rushed to publish a retraction, but the damage had already been done. French Foreign Minister Maurice Couvet de Murville was forced to refute the allegations in parliament to defuse growing tensions with Washington.

The episode was "an excellent example of how the Communists use false news to great effect," CIA Assistant Deputy Director Richard Helms said in June 1961 during his testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security.

Ghana was the first African country to gain independence from British colonial rule, in 1957. By the late 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, the country was a powerhouse on the continent.

The country's first prime minister, Kwame Nkrumah, was closely allied with the Soviet regime. Nkrumah's removal from power in a coup in 1966 was a blow to the Kremlin's influence, as he was succeeded by the pro-American General Joseph Arthur Ankrah.

Behind the Iron Curtain, Soviet spies hatched plans to restore Nkrumah to the presidency. One attempt was Operation Alex, which demonstrated how important Africa was to the secret services of the USSR and its satellites.

The operation began with eggs. A Czechoslovak spy under diplomatic cover, Karel Hotarek, traveled to a farm near the capital Accra owned by his compatriots in 1967. Hotarek arrived under the pretext of buying fresh eggs, but in reality he was meeting Kofi Batsa, a writer and political activist closely associated with Nkrumah.

Hotarek discussed all the details and left the meeting excited about the plan. The diplomat's "superiors" approved the plan and allocated funding, Operation Alex was to begin in October 1968. Contacts close to Moscow informed Nkrumah that he should prepare to return to power.

But over time, Hotarek and the Soviet military intelligence service, the GRU, grew increasingly suspicious of Batsa, even arresting him in August 1968, two months before the operation was to begin. Eastern Bloc spies feared they had handed over Soviet weapons and money to an unreliable demagogue incapable of carrying out a covert operation.

The arrest of Kofi Batsa did not stop Moscow, which planned to carry out the operation in alliance with other accomplices.

But months passed and the counter-coup never happened. There was no official explanation, and even key figures in the project wondered what had happened. “I cannot understand why nothing happened,” Nkrumah wrote in a letter to historian June Milne in December 1968. “I was given to understand that something was going to happen about this time, but there was no coup.”


Late at night, unregistered flights from African countries friendly to the USSR landed in Crimea with groups of young people aged 15 to 30 on board. Buses with lowered curtains were already waiting for them on the runway to take the new "students" to Center 165 in the village of Perevalnoye. 

Since 1965, the largest Soviet center for training fighters for African liberation movements was located there, where 500 people could study at a time.

During the camp's existence - 26 years - about 15 thousand fighters were trained here, including from the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, the African National Congress and the Mozambique Liberation Front.

The training was intense and partly controlled by the KGB. Cadets had to rise every day at six in the morning and do an hour of calisthenics before breakfast, followed by five hours of combat training. After lunch, the “students” studied Russian, Marxism-Leninism, and the history of revolutions around the world, or worked in the field and then watched Soviet films. Combat training continued after nightfall: cadets, for example, learned skills such as how to cross minefields in the dark.

Since the center was located 20 kilometers from the coastal city of Alushta, the surrounding area also served as an idyllic backdrop for learning about communist values ​​in real life: once a month, the center's cadets visited collective farms, shops, and schools.

Although the center was considered effective in spreading Soviet ideology, it disappeared after the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

Collaboration between Soviet agents and African liberationists could be beneficial to both sides, as demonstrated by the relationship between two Cold War spies known as Alter and the Secretary.

Alter, aka Miroslav Adamek, was a Czechoslovakian spy working under diplomatic cover in the Guinean capital of Conakry.

Alter, aka Miroslav Adamek, was a Czechoslovakian spy working under diplomatic cover in the Guinean capital of Conakry.

The secretary was Amilcar Cabral, an influential figure among the leaders of the African liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s and the founder of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC).

Adamek and Cabral first met in November 1960. The two men dined together, after which the Czech spy said he found their conversation “very encouraging” and suggested that his superiors recruit Cabral as a “secret informant” codenamed Secretary.

 Cabral, who was known to be inspired by Marxist ideology, used the meeting to ask for financial and logistical assistance to support a rebellion against the Portuguese colonial authorities in Guinea. Moscow, eager to secure new allies, agreed.

The relationship was mutually beneficial. Cabral received weapons that increased the military strength of the PAIGC. His brother was sent to study medicine at Moscow's Patrice Lumumba University, and his daughter Iva was accepted to a prestigious boarding school near the Soviet capital.

In return, Moscow and Prague received inside information from events to which Cabral was invited. They were also able to gain a deeper understanding of the leaders of liberation movements across Africa.

But relations between the secret services of Czechoslovakia and the USSR cooled after the invasion of Russian tanks and the suppression of the Prague Spring in August 1968. In the future, Czechoslovak spies did not actively support Moscow, including in Africa.

Soviet Spies in Africa: How the KGB Strengthened Soviet Influence on the Continent During the Cold War