China keeps demonstrating and investing in an assertive influence clearly visible across Global South. How much data, infrastructure and power has been accumulated by the CCP? Are we prepared for the theatres of tomorrow? While Ukraine succeeded in shaping the information environment in the West, the situation is more dire across the Global South. Russian narratives and proxies are present in the information space of many countries in Africa, Latin America and other regions. The “grain crisis” is a depictive case study of Russia weaponizing hostile narratives in order to blame Ukraine for “causing war and making the developing world starve to the death”. While the reasons in each of the countries for ambiguous positioning towards Russia are different, the question remains – what can we do to counter this trend?