Reports
Latvia Monthly: Disinformation Portrays Latvia as Both Militarily Weak and Recklessly Aggressive
Pro-Kremlin Telegram channels in September disseminated multiple narratives about Latvia, including portraying language education policies as discriminatory oppression, mocking military capabilities, and framing Russian military exercises as transparent while dismissing Baltic security concerns. Domestic disinformation intensified around the Istanbul Convention, with opposition politicians fabricating conspiracy theories about gender ideology and immorality to misrepresent a violence prevention treaty and undermine human rights protections.
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Estonia Weekly: Defense Spending Proposal Sparks Dispute
Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal proposed raising defence spending to 5% of GDP. Pro-Russian social media users criticised the move. Pro-Kremlin commentators expressed irony, while others praised Trump's new policy and some hoped for the cancellation of the green deal in Europe.
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Estonia Weekly: Distrust in the Government
This week posts over the social media and web-based news outlets were mainly focusing on the issue of Russian language status, economic issues, places of memory for the Soviet soldiers, as well as the “standard” Kremlin propaganda messages regarding the Estonian membership in NATO and European Union. Two “arguments” would highlight the week – that Estonian expenditures towards the national defense will destroy the production and manufacturing industry in Estonia, and that Estonian government would reinstate its independence and serve its citizens best, if Estonia would withdraw from EU and NATO and resume full scale economic ties with Russia. The main narratives of this week are as follows: that Estonian government intentionally is destroying production and industry in Estonia; the national policy of Estonia is discriminating Russian language; that Estonian government makes fun of the memory of Soviet soldiers who died in World War II by destroying their memorials; that war in Ukraine is a pretext to discriminate Russian language in Estonian schools for Russian speaking children; That while Estonia is a member of NATO and EU and until economic ties with Russia are restored, there is no independent Estonian government, that would care about interests of Estonian people.
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