An Angolan court has sentenced two Russian nationals over an alleged operation to destabilise the country before its 2027 election. Political consultant Igor Ratchin received 11 years and interpreter Lev Lakshtanov eight, on charges from espionage to terrorism that carried up to 15 years; summaries differ on which of eleven counts produced the convictions.
Prosecutors said the pair spread false information among anti-government protesters during the 2025 fuel-price unrest, in which dozens died, recruited local activists, planned a fresh wave of protests and intended to finance the opposition UNITA. The defendants denied the charges, saying they had come to establish a “Russian House” cultural centre; their lawyers said the file held no evidence of terrorism.
Ratchin had worked on Russian regional election campaigns; Lakshtanov was a longtime military interpreter in Angola. Both were tied to Africa Politology, a network the US Treasury traced to Prigozhin’s “Africa Back Office” of consultants manipulating African politics. Meta documented Russia-origin networks targeting the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Sudan, Libya and other states through locally presented pages. Investigative and Russian-service reporting says that after Prigozhin’s death in 2023 the project passed to the presidential administration and the SVR, though no court has established that link.
Moscow has stayed at a distance: the embassy has offered only consular support, and BBC sources say officials treat the operation as unofficial. Angola has challenged a familiar form of Russian political influence – one structured, as ever, for deniability.
