Reward to 2005, suspected Russian asset Alexander Smirnov lived in Israel and is thought to have also been Mossad - a double agent for Russia. This is the time when Israel left Gaza and Hamas was elected shortly after. Shortly after, Smirnov moved to the US. Stateside, Alexander Smirnov would more recently gain notoriety for peddling Russian disinformation about the Biden family.
In 2023 South Africa hosted the BRICS summit, and invited Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, and the UAE to join. Towards the end of 2023 Hamas attacked Israel and South Africa made a very big show of condemning Israel in a way that forcefully divided the US that was forced to respond on the world stage.
BRICS nations seek to become the world’s dominant financial power, displacing the US and the G7 Bloc.
USAID is in part responsible for ending Apartheid in South Africa, and is both a source of outreach for humanitarian good will and an information gathering apparatus on the world stage. Since South Africa is a BRICS nation seeking to replace the US in financial influence, they benefit from weakening USAID and the US's outreach - other BRICS nations, China and Russia, will fill the power vacuum left behind.
2024 elections were a more successful repeat of 2016 - propaganda, disinformation, and voter suppression efforts gave BRICS nations exactly the US leadership they sought; providing an opportunity to expand their influence on the world and enrich themselves.