Baltic states

2024 Annual Report: Influence Campaigns in the Baltic States

The 2024 elections in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia became a primary target for Kremlin-aligned disinformation campaigns, aiming to undermine trust in democratic processes. These efforts centered on claims of electoral fraud, corruption, and anti-government rhetoric, seeking to delegitimize pro-EU outcomes and frame national leadership as incompetent. Narratives questioning coalition legitimacy and election integrity were widely amplified. Beyond electoral manipulation, economic challenges, anti-EU sentiment, cultural values, and social policies - including LGBTQ rights - were exploited to deepen societal divisions. Anti-Ukrainian sentiment was also prominent, portraying support for Ukraine as harmful to national interests and framing the EU as imposing damaging policies on the region. Ultimately, these campaigns aimed to weaken national resilience, erode trust in governance, and align public opinion with Kremlin interests by amplifying anti-EU and anti-Western narratives while exacerbating societal rifts.

by Urtė Andriukaitytė

Baltic states Annual report Baltic states

Key Takeaways:

The 2024 elections in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia became the main target of Kremlin-aligned actors and their campaigns. They used claims of electoral fraud, corruption, and general anti-government rhetoric to undermine trust in democratic processes.

Disinformation campaigns criticised pro-EU outcomes, framed national leadership as incompetent, and questioned the legitimacy of coalitions and election integrity.

In Lithuania, Facebook, YouTube, and Telegram were primary platforms for amplifying disinformation narratives. Latvia saw TikTok dominate, targeting both Latvian and Russian-speaking audiences. In Estonia, YouTube played a central role, with a single channel generating the most top-engaged posts.

Across all three countries, disinformation leveraged economic challenges, anti-EU sentiment, cultural values, and social policies like LGBTQ rights to deepen societal divisions and foster mistrust in institutions. Anti-Ukrainian sentiment was prominent, portraying support for Ukraine as detrimental to national interests while framing the EU as imposing harmful policies.

These campaigns sought to weaken national resilience and align public opinion with Kremlin interests by exploiting societal divisions, eroding trust in governance, and amplifying anti-EU and anti-Western narratives.

Methodology:

This report was prepared using publicly available information sources and the YouScan media monitoring tool to systematically analyse and monitor media content across Lithuanian platforms that promote Kremlin-aligned narratives. The research encompassed the entire calendar year of 2024, spanning from January 1 to December 31. The analysis included a comprehensive review of various sources, such as websites, social media profiles, and communication channels. Throughout the study, YouScan identified and aggregated a total of 348,399 content pieces comprising posts, videos, articles, and comments. A significant portion of the analyzed data is available on the Balticdisinfo.eu platform.