By EUvsDisinfo
Russia is promoting a picture of the Baltic region in which NATO is preparing to attack Russia, Baltic governments are heavily militarising, and Russian speakers face imminent persecution. Taken together, these narratives create an atmosphere of permanent crisis in which military escalation appears increasingly plausible. This allows Moscow to exert pressure even without taking overt military action – the possibility of conflict itself becomes an instrument of coercion.
In late 2025, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) drew attention to the steady stream of Russian FIMI targeting the Baltic countries, noting that they mirror the narratives that the Kremlin used to try to justify its invasions of Ukraine. Recent Baltic intelligence assessments describe a sustained and increasingly organised Russian effort to influence the information environment in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, disseminating anti-Baltic narratives through social media and coordinated cross-platform campaigns.
The ‘Baltic aggressors’
One of the recurring narratives portrays the Baltic states as aggressors leading the West’s fight against Russia. The allegation gained prominence after Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, when Russian officials falsely accused the Baltic states of opening ‘air corridors’ for Ukrainian drones – a claim that Baltic authorities rejected. Another common narrative holds that the West is losing its fight against Russia and is therefore trying to open ‘a second front’ in the Baltic region. It depicts the Baltic states as ‘kamikaze’ countries willing to sacrifice themselves to weaken Russia, just as Ukraine supposedly had done before them.
The ‘Baltic aggressors’ narrative also includes claims that Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are rapidly militarising against Russia. Such claims became especially prominent during recent NATO exercises in the Baltic region. The Gallant Boar 2026 drills are intended to strengthen coordination among allied forces in a strategically important area on NATO’s eastern flank, between Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave and Belarus. Outlets in the Kremlin’s information ecosystem portrayed the exercises as preparations for a large-scale war with Russia, claiming that NATO was testing Kaliningrad’s defences before a possible attempt to seize the Russian exclave or subject it to a Crimea-style blockade. Belarusian state media have promoted similar narratives: for instance, one state television report claimed that ‘Lithuania as a country is being converted into a vast military training ground’.
Persecution claims and legal pretexts
Belarus has also supported Russia’s claims that the Baltic states are violating the rights of their Russian-speaking minorities. In early June, Russian and Belarusian officials published a joint report on the issue. Russian rhetoric frequently blurs the distinction between Russian speakers, ethnic Russians, and Russian citizens, allowing the Kremlin to present a broad and diverse population as a single community supposedly under Moscow’s protection. Grigory Lukyantsev, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s director for human rights, claimed without evidence that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were preparing mass deportations of Russian speakers. Russian state-aligned media widely amplified his statement, while Russian embassies in all three countries publicised the report on their websites and social media accounts. More recently, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova also claimed that the Baltic states were actively trying to prevent Russian citizens from voting in the upcoming State Duma elections.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has announced plans to bring a case before the International Court of Justice over what it calls the ‘systematic violation’ of the rights of ethnic Russians in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. The Ministry claims that the Baltic authorities are ‘banning’ the Russian language, ‘rewriting history’, and conducting a ‘punitive campaign of repression and intimidation’. A joint investigation by Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian journalists found that Russian Foreign Ministry lawyers had been collecting legal arguments for such a case since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Around the same time, the Russian embassies in Estonia and Lithuania had published statements claiming that Russian citizens in both countries had become targets of ‘threats and provocations’ and urged them to report incidents of ‘bullying’ to their consular departments.
The Kremlin’s claims about the persecution of Russian citizens are especially concerning because Russia used similar ‘protection’ narratives to justify its aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and its full-scale invasion in 2022. Similar rhetoric has deeper historical precedents – when the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland in September 1939, following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany, it also claimed that it was intervening to protect local Ukrainians and Belarusians. This May, Putin signed a law allowing the president to deploy Russian armed forces to protect Russian citizens arrested, detained, or subjected to criminal or other proceedings pursuant to decisions by certain foreign or international courts. The provision does not appear to cover ordinary administrative measures such as the enforcement of residency requirements. Nevertheless, Moscow has portrayed Latvia’s decision to deport Russian citizens who failed to meet such requirements as further evidence of persecution, illustrating how separate legal and administrative disputes can be incorporated into the Kremlin’s broader ‘protection’ narrative.
Accusations of ‘Nazi glorification’
The list of Russian narratives targeting the Baltic states that closely resemble those previously used against Ukraine would be incomplete without accusations of ‘Nazi glorification’. In recent years, Russian Foreign Ministry officials have repeatedly accused the Baltic states of glorifying Nazism, particularly in relation to their treatment of Soviet-era monuments and their commemoration of historical events.
In its 2026 report on the glorification of Nazism, the Russian Foreign Ministry identifies the Baltic states – along with Ukraine, Moldova, Poland and Finland – as particularly active in destroying Soviet monuments dedicated to those who fought Nazism, accusing them of ‘growing efforts to glorify Nazis, collaborators, and their present-day followers’.
As part of this campaign, the Kremlin has attempted to associate Lithuanian resistance fighters who opposed the Soviet occupation with Nazism. The Russian Foreign Ministry’s report on human rights violations in the Baltic countries accuses Vilnius of ‘openly pursuing a policy of falsifying the history of World War II and glorifying Nazi collaborators by elevating them to the status of national heroes’.
Military build-up and warnings of an attack
In parallel to the Kremlin’s information campaigns, Russia’s military development and recent Western reporting have contributed to genuine concern about Baltic security. Yet capability, rhetoric, and evidence of imminent intent should not be treated as interchangeable. According to The Telegraph, Russia is already using at least 10 military bases near the borders of Belarus and Ukraine to launch long-range attack drones against Ukraine. Depending on the launch location, the reported 1,000-kilometre range of the Geran-5 could place parts of several NATO countries within reach. This demonstrates a growing capability, although it does not by itself establish an intention to attack NATO territory.
Unsurprisingly, many experts are considering the risk of a Russian attack on the Baltic states. Concern about a more immediate threat intensified after two US publications, citing unnamed sources familiar with CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow, reported that he had warned Russia against attacking NATO territory. Politico quoted an anonymous source who said the meeting was ‘primarily to warn Russia against any escalatory action against the Baltic states’. The Wall Street Journal, citing ‘people briefed on the visit’, reported that Ratcliffe had travelled to Moscow ‘to deliver a warning to Russia not to attack NATO countries’.
Responding to the reports, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said that Estonia’s threat assessment had not changed; Latvia’s chief of defence, Kaspars Pudans, reacted similarly, saying that ‘he wouldn’t be sitting there’ if there were an immediate threat. Former Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves separately questioned the anonymously sourced accounts and suggested that the references to the Baltic states could be a smokescreen.
Fear as an instrument of pressure
These narratives are useful for Moscow, regardless of its current intent or timetable for potential military action. Apart from helping to legitimise possible future aggression, stoking fears of imminent war can weaken confidence in NATO, encourage risk-averse Western decisions, and frame defensive preparations as dangerous escalation.
Dismissing the threat or failing to prepare for it would be reckless. But preparations must be based on a rational assessment of Russia’s capabilities, not on the fear the Kremlin is deliberately trying to spread.
By EUvsDisinfo
