Reports
Lithuania Weekly: Putin’s interview
Kremlin-aligned media outlets were covering highly scattered topics during this reporting week. Among them, they widely discussed US journalist Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The authors claimed that the conversation touched on important topics such as the threat of war with NATO, the situation in Ukraine, and a possible global nuclear conflict.
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Lithuania Weekly: Kidnapping of a girl in Kaunas
During this reporting period, the entire country closely followed an intense drama, namely the search for a missing 9-year-old girl. Fortunately, she has been found alive after a frantic two-day search by officers and hundreds of volunteers. Lithuanian police successfully carried out an operation to free the girl, who was kidnapped and held in a garage in Kaunas. Despite the show of public unity, a well-known anti-government and Kremlin-aligned actor, Antanas Kandrotas (Celofanas [Cellophane]), continued to fuel passions on Lithuanian social networks. Celofanas has repeatedly claimed that he has “non-public information” about the crime and that “police are hiding the real situation”, urging his audience not to trust police officers in general. Right before the victim’s suspected abductor was detained, Celofanas sparked an outpouring of hate by naming and publishing a photograph of a man on Facebook, alleging his involvement in the crime. Turned out that he was not related to the crime at all.
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Lithuania Weekly: Fire in the Viršuliskės Neighbourhood
During this reporting week, the stories from Lithuania’s remaining Kremlin-aligned media outlets that received the most engagement covered domestic issues. These centred around a fire at an apartment building in Vilnius, in which 15 people were rescued and two died. Malign actors quickly linked the event to different conspiracy theories; for example, referring to it as a terrorist attack, claiming that police knew about the bomb but did not stop the approaching accident, or even assuming that Ukrainian refugees may have brought the bomb.
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Lithuania Weekly: Discussions about Country’s Security
During this reporting week, heated discussions were mainly accelerated by two cases. Firstly, a man carrying a bag
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