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: Brussels dictate and misused donations to Ukraine
In the examined weeks, new disinformation narratives have appeared. The new disinformation narratives have an underlying message of the European Union not being beneficial for Latvia. The content surrounding the Green Deal and global warming does not question global warming as such but rather focuses on how these restrictions imposed by the European union are negatively affecting the Latvian economy and even comparing the European Union to the USSR. Nevertheless, content on such topics is not gaining significant engagement.
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Estonia Weekly: Ukraine and mistrusted politicians
This week there was more talk about the economy, including Estonia’s assistance to Ukraine and its effect on the budget and economy, as well as the salaries of the Estonian politicians and how they are being paid more than teachers and paramedics, even though they do less to contribute to society. A missile attack in Ukraine was also mentioned, as well as America’s and Britain’s assistance with this claimed deliberate strike against civilians that killed and injured many. The switch of language of instruction was also brought up, and some teachers are struggling with learning Estonian and are scared of losing their jobs. Finally, there was a video link posted about the deportation of non-Estonian citizens and how those who are simply expressing their opinions are going to be deported as well.
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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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Latvia Weekly: Green initiatives – a threat to Latvian economy
During the examined week the disinformation narratives were comparatively diverse in comparison to prior weeks. Nevertheless, the primary issues discussed are domestic, such as corruption, societal values and language. From the examined platforms, most engagement is reached on TikTok and Facebook, where content is posted in video format. In the prior weeks, there had been a noticeable trend of disinformation channels being more active on Twitter, which is starting to reach significantly more engagement. Nevertheless, the engagement is highly critical.
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Estonia Weekly: Centrist party and people of Tallinn at the centre of attention
This week there continues to be a lot of discussion about the politicians who left the Centrist Party, stating that they are liars who went against the will of their constituents. There was also a lot of discussion about Zelensky’s arrival in the Baltics, Estonia’s relations with Ukraine, and about sending Ukrainians back to fight in the war. There was also mention of the economic downturn and the people blaming the richer cities.
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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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Latvia Weekly: Zelensky and Istanbul Convention
In the examined week, there was significantly lower activity in the disinformation channels examined. Similarly as last week, central topics are corruption and the Istanbul Convention. As seen in prior weeks, there is more activity in X which has also started to gain engagement. Nevertheless, the form of the content that reaches the highest engagement remains to be in video format and is reached in Tiktok or Facebook platforms.
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Estonia Weekly: Vaccines, Centrist Party and Russian Language
This week there were claims that the centrist party members moving to the socialdemocrat party is causing the centrist party to lean more eastward and the politicians who left are doing to be a bigger part of the government and advance their careers even though it goes against the wishes of the people. COVID vaccinations were also claimed to have been lied about in the beginning of the pandemic and stated that western leaders said they took the medicine but 17000 people who took it, died. There were also articles about the Estonian Language Department and their erasure of Russian language from old mechanics, because they believe that it may threaten the Estonian language.
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Lithuania Weekly: Major Wars Discussed
Kremlin-aligned media outlets still operating in Lithuania continued to cover the wars in Ukraine and Occupied Palestinian Territory in a highly biased manner. Outlets kept harshly criticising Jews and accusing them of mass killings, and condemning Ukrainians for their ‘own negligence’, by all means discouraging support for them. Specific outlets, as most of the time, further spreade the anti-government sentiments.
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