Report
Lithuania Weekly: Vaitkus Award Controversy Used to Undermine the Government
Kremlin-aligned media in Lithuania continued to amplify the fallout from Eduardas Vaitkus’s award revocation, portraying it as a symbol of authoritarianism and political bias. The narrative was echoed by publisher Vitas Tomkus, whose provocative protest framed state honors as tools of loyalty, reinforcing broader efforts to discredit Lithuania’s leadership and its Western alignment.
Weekly Reports
Lithuania Weekly: Distrust in Officials and Confusion between Private and Public Interests
Analysis of specifically Kremlin-aligned media in Lithuania revealed that these outlets continued to promote the anti-government narrative. All most engaged stories from this type of media outlet carried negative sentiments targeting the government, trying to turn its audience against the main ruling politicians or national institutions. In the centre of attention this week – Lithuanian Chief of Defence General Valdemaras Rupšys, who made headlines due to revelations about the (mis)use of his state allowance, which he used to rent an apartment from his son. Kremlin-aligned media, whose interest greatly corresponds with anti-government sentiments, widely covered this topic, emphasising the confusion between public and private interests. The authors used the situation to question the general’s morals, negatively picturing not only him, but the whole ruling government and governance system in general. Kremlin-aligned media constantly use similar narratives to draw wider pictures at the national level, beyond single cases.
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Latvia Weekly: Border Security Concerns, Linguistic Polarization, and Political Critique
In this week, the disinformation primarily addressed domestic issues, such as polarization between Latvian and Russian speakers, the ratification of the Istanbul convention, and the influx of illegal migrants at the eastern border of Latvia. Content on Twitter reached a significantly lower audience compared to other platforms, with video content showing higher levels of engagement.
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Estonia Weekly: Security, Taxation and Trade Challenges
This week reflects the main processes in the world and national politics. Activity in social media is focused on security challenges within Estonian society, threats were received in Estonian schools, that were directed to physical security, questioning whether if there is relation to the Russian propaganda and other relate forces. A legislation was adopted with regards to the vehicle taxation policy, which is regarded by different opinions in the society. South Korea earned the attention over the social media, that Estonia could benefit to the South Korean and European trade. Many posts are related to the situation in Israel. The main narratives are naming the national security services as incompetent, that national vehicle taxation policy is a fail. and will lead to collapse of the market, US is dominating in the world politics only for its narrow economic and political interests, that Estonian politicians are incompetent in the domain of the world trade and economy, that state of Israel is a fail of US hegemonic policies of the cold war era and Estonian government is working against Estonian people
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Lithuania Weekly: Undermined Support for Ukraine, Upcoming Elections and Political Mistrust
During this reporting period, Kremlin-aligned media emphasised the “failing education system” (due to the ongoing teachers’ protests) and commented on all the revealed candidacies for the upcoming presidential elections. Hostile media has also continued to undermine support for Ukraine, claiming that the main initiators of its fundraisers in Lithuania are widely involved in accounting scandals and are only looking to benefit from the funds themselves.
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Latvia Weekly: Vaccine Anxiety, Education Fears, and Pension Discontent
The majority of content continues to focus on COVID-19, specifically the anxiety surrounding mandatory vaccines. Content in Latvian language reaches a smaller audience compared to Russian, but garners more comments. Interestingly, the same content is received differently by Latvian and Russian-speaking audiences; Latvian responses are more critical, while Russian responses are predominantly supportive.
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Estonia Weekly: Estonian Language in the Limelight
This week draw most of the attention towards the education policy in Estonia, which provides, that teaching language in Estonia is Estonian language. This topic was also discussed in relation to the similar developments in Latvia, that also is taking place for some time. These developments are regarded as Russophobic and ultra nationalistic. Among the other topics were raised issue of the ban of the Estonian visas for the Russian citizens, which was regarded as a violation of the basic human rights, and politician Yana Toom elevated this issue on the level of the European Parliament. One of the authors utilized his Facebook account in spreading Chinese narrative towards Europe and USA. In summary, the narratives over this week suggested, that (1) Estonian ban of Visas for Russian citizens is a violation of the basic human rights, (2) the United States utilize disinformation as an instrument to hold its hegemony, (3) in Estonia prevails Russophobia in a massive scale – It is forbidden to be Russian in Estonia, while Ukraine agenda prevails and Ukraine flag is a Nazi Symbol and (3) This is a kind of a tragedy for kids of Russian minority to learn in Estonian language.
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Lithuania Weekly: Government Distrust, Ethnic Divisions, and Freedom of Speech Concerns
Lithuanian media was dominated by various topics, giving a clear and convenient basis for anti-government narratives to spread. Teachers’ protest taking place, was picturing Lithuania as a failed state by harshly criticising its education system; recently proposed comprehensive reform plan for the country’s Public Security Service (VST) sparked many discussions about its necessity and future impact for people in the field; blames of general incompetence of the ruling government continued to be a prominent topic. Kremlin-aligned media in the country claimed to have “finally figured out” who is mainly benefitting from the war in Ukraine, referring to Western countries, mocked the new or ongoing sanctions imposed on Russia, and kept ironically calling Lithuanian politicians the “real supporters of war”.
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Latvia Weekly: Persistent COVID-19 Disinformation, Corruption Claims, and Waning
Whilst the authors remain the same and try to apply a similar video format and narrative as in previous weeks, the engagement is lower. Additionally, some content relating to corruption and low trust in government is getting more prominent among the opposition political party leaders however engagement remains low. Considering that in prior weeks content relating to COVID-19 was relevant due to members of parliament being required to temporarily wear masks, the low engagement on similar content could be attributed to lack of actual evidence of a reintroduction of restrictions or vaccines.
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Estonia Weekly: Government Distrust, Ethnic Divisions, and Freedom of Speech Concerns
Issues of national division, “untrustful” and grim nature of policy, disappointment in the state, government and democracy, as well as Latvian national policy towards the Russian media were among the most discussed topics over the social media in Estonia this week. In general, the narratives were suggesting that Estonian state media is dividing society between Russians and Estonians, solely on ethnic basis, and that politics is the only source of depression. The particular post was illustrated by a “no politics” sign. Other original posts supported that people cannot trust in politicians, people are not free, there is no true freedom of speech. As among the news from Latvia came the decision of the Latvian Parliament regarding the future policies towards the Russian language media, it was quickly translated into the narrative, that Latvian Parliament has adopted a policy of immediate closing of state financed media on Russian Language, which is fake news.
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