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.
Co-authors:
Urtė Andriukaitytė | Vidmantė Krušinskaitė | Gabrielė Stankūnaitė | Linas Skirius | Lukas Andriukaitis | Tomas Kazulėnas
Latvian and Estonian input prepared by:
Skeptics Society (Skeptiska biedriba) in Latvia | The National Centre of Defence & Security Awareness in Estonia
