Report
Lithuania Weekly: Targeting Lithuania’s Government with Criticism and Conspiracy Theories
Kremlin-aligned Lithuanian media amplified anti-government narratives this week, criticizing Lithuania’s pro-Western stance and support for Ukraine as detrimental to its sovereignty. Articles also highlighted economic challenges, drawing parallels with social crises in Europe and questioning the EU’s capitalist model. Additionally, narratives claimed Ukraine is losing the war, suggesting peace depends on NATO abandonment and territorial concessions.
Weekly Reports
Latvia Weekly: Public Transport and NATO
In the examined week, the content primarily surrounded domestic issues relating to alleged corruption, the potential invasion by Russia, and the inability of NATO to protect the Baltic states. Such narratives have been employed by highly nationalistic content creators claiming to be supporters of Ukraine and those more aligned with the Kremlin narratives. The premise of the claim is that NATO is either ineffective not have the capability to protect the Baltic states or will not be willing to protect the Baltic states in the case of an invasion.
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Estonia Weekly: Military commitments and foreign policy
This week, many posts focused on Kai Kallas’s reaction to the French President’s speech on Ukraine and her willingness to send Estonians into the war for Ukraine. There were also posts about shutting down some schools and the loss of teachers’ jobs, as well as about school janitors and cafeteria workers being required to speak Estonian at an A2 level and how that is not helpful or useful. Finally, there continue to be posts regarding the Estonian economy and Kai Kalla’s and the government’s reactions and actions toward it.
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Lithuania Weekly: Weekly: Death of Alexei Navalny and undermining trust in NATO
Kremlin-aligned media outlets broadly commented on NATO and its possible faith. Outlets emphasised the questionable future of the organisation if Trump becomes the President, foreseeing that “it would be over for NATO”. Outlets also pictured Ukraine’s victory as impossible and ensured that “US and Europe have lost the war to Russia in Ukraine, and Crimea and Donbas will remain Russian territories”. Outlets also speculated the reasons behind the death of “the US-funded and Western-praised” Alexei Navalny, seeking conspiracy theories of whom to blame and calling him “a Western puppet”.
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Latvia Weekly: School reforms and corruption
During the examined week, the content primarily surrounded domestic issues relating to school reforms, an investigative report on one of the opposition parties, and high living expenses. A common theme throughout the content examined is that all of the issues are directly linked to corruption and leading political parties potentially to create lower trust in government. Additionally, the content discussed often mentions how specific policies negatively affect children. Most notably, the disinformation actors from the opposition party “Latvia in the first place” were recently exposed for their intentional content creation, including disinformation narratives. From this week’s findings, the disinformation actors that belong to the opposition party and their primary channels on social media are receiving significantly less engagement (the posts now reach less than fifty likes compared to the usual few hundred). Additionally, the content published now is milder in the disinformation narratives and trying to portray them more covertly or does not include them at all.
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Estonia Weekly: Ukraine and Soviet-era policies
This week, there were many posts which were connected to the Estonian Independence Day, many of which involved people claiming that they hoped that the repression and demonisation of the Russian civilians would end. There was also a claim that an Estonian attacked a person for being a Russian speaker. The Russian embassy to Estonia had many posts concerning the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv 10 years ago. It stated that this is when Ukraine fell into Nazism, and the involvement of the West is what caused the war along with Ukraine’s bombing of Donbas for several years. Social and political issues, such as price increases and the budget, were also mentioned in posts, and one poster claimed that the price increases in Estonia today are similar to those seen during the Soviet Union.
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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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Latvia Weekly: Living standards and train controversies
In the examined week, there was considerably lower production of content disseminating disinformation potentially due to a series produced by investigative journalists uncovering how much content is produced by a leading opposition party “Latvija pirmajā vietā” (Latvia in the first place). The common narrative in this week’s findings was corruption and the low level of living standards in Latvia. Most notably, as in prior weeks, the content has touched upon the controversy regarding the trains. In regard to the form of the content, video format creates the most engagement and significantly more engagement is reached on TikTok and Facebook in comparison to other platforms.
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Estonia Weekly: Navalny and Public Transport
This week, the focus remained on Kai Kallas and the signatures that had been collected that called for her resignation. According to the articles and a survey of 30,000 Estonian citizens conducted by the Centrist Party, two-thirds of the Estonian public supported the resignation of Kai Kallas. There was also a focus on the death of Navalny, with an article claiming that his associates have no way to prove that he died in custody. Other articles focused on the Estonian economy and the massive government spending, as well as claims that a government department wants to remove free public transport for school children and pensioners. Finally, there were articles mentioning the government refusing to give out delays on switching school language of study to Estonian in areas where the teachers still need to be at the C1 level. The articles claim that the Estonian government is more worried about the language switch than the quality of education the students receive.
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Lithuania Weekly: alleged embezzling of millions of euros
During this reporting week, Lithuania focused on one of the most significant financial crimes in recent history: the detainment of former BaltCap equity fund manager Šarūnas Stepukonis, suspected of misappropriating €27 million. In response to the scandal, BaltCap is withdrawing from several high-profile commitments. Notably, the investment fund has handed over the construction of the national stadium to another developer, causing delays and majorly increased costs. Pro-Kremlin outlets covered the Šarūnas Stepukonis case extensively, claiming he was not working alone and naming specific officials who “stood behind all of that”. Kremlin-aligned media outlets again used this domestic scandal to promote an anti-government narrative, accusing the current government of having direct ties with Stepukonis and jointly benefitting from the embezzlement.
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