Original link: Africa sides with Russia in $4 billion military deals as Western influence weakens / Business Insider Africa.
The articles mentions Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger as examples. Those 3 countries has several things in common - one of them is this description of government in Wikipedia: "Unitary semi-presidential republic under a military junta".
Apparently military juntas and Russia get along nicely. Which is not surprising.
Very little the west can do about it - organizing pro-west coups is a thing of the last century. But the west should insist that in case of famine then those countries should ask Russia for help and refugees from those countries should go to Russia and not the west.