By EU vs Disinfo In September last year we revealed how the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs smeared the Baltic countries by claiming they have not become democracies respecting the rule of law. Despite the pushback, the Kremlin’s disinformation campaign has once again been dialled to history, due to the postponed Victory day parade celebrating the 75th anniversary of WWII. This time, the kick-off came from the Twitter account of the Russian embassy…
By Dr. Solvita Denisa-Liepniece, for CEPA Kaspersky is popular in Russia, less so elsewhere. Vladimir Putin called the cybersecurity company’s founder, Eugene Kaspersky, Russia’s answer to Elon Musk. The KGB-trained software expert founded the company (then known as Kaspersky Lab) in 1997; it became one of the most popular antivirus program providers in the world. Recently, it has had a rough ride. The U.S. has banned its software for government use.…
By Stanisław Żaryn, for StopFake In the COVID-19 pandemic Vladimir Putin sees a chance to pull Russia out of its international isolation. Therefore, the coronavirus crisis has become a tool widely used in the Kremlin’s diplomatic offensive. Russia’s foreign minister has recently rejected Western claims that behind the Kremlin’s coronavirus aid to Italy and elsewhere is political point-scoring. But when Sergey Lavrov is slamming the West for getting the Russian…
By Réka Szemerkényi, for CEPA Past week’s CEPA webinar with the Baltic ambassadors to the United States highlighted the wider impact of the coronavirus pandemic on regional cooperation, the EU, and transatlantic security. The participants were Jonatan Vseviov (Estonia), Māris Selga (Latvia) and Rolandas Kriščiūnas (Lithuania). The following are the highlights of that conversation, condensed and paraphrased for clarity. The crisis is common. The virus does not discriminate between countries…
By Margarita Assenova, for Polygraph Vladimir Kornilov Russian political commentator “Poland, the Baltic States and, for some time now, Ukraine, without even realizing that they are acting to their own detriment, are trying to do everything they can to, as they see it, harm Russia. That is why they are impeding the expansion of Russian gas projects and acting solely for the sake of the United States, contrary to their…
By Polygraph Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Twitter account “In the early 90s the Baltic nations, after over 50 years of being a part of the #SovietUnion, gained their national independence. This event raised hopes and aspirations that the Baltic Soviet Republics would turn into modern democratic and rule-of-law states, which, unfortunately, never came true.” Source: Russian Foreign Ministry Twitter account, August 27, 2019 False By all metrics, the Baltic…
By Holger Roonemaa (POSTIMEES), Inga Springe (RE:BALTICA) Skype logs and other documents obtained by Re:Baltica, Postimees and Buzzfeed offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine. The Russian government via companies in Serbia and Cyprus discreetly funded a group of seemingly independent news websites in Eastern Europe to pump out stories dictated to them by the Kremlin, BuzzFeed News and its reporting partners can reveal. Russian state media created secret companies in…
By Viktor Denisenko, in cooperation with Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis, for StopFake On February 23, 2018, the Radio and Television Commission of Lithuania blocked the transmission of RTR Planeta – a Russian-state television channel – for 12 months. RTR Planeta was already temporarily banned in Lithuania twice before for one- and three- month periods respectively. Similarly, other Russian-state channels have also faced similar fate before. Even today, 27 years…
By EU vs Disinfo A dark image of the Baltic states was (again), painted in pro-Kremlin disinformation this week. Firstly, the Latvian Army was accused of shooting civilians in 1991, during Latvia’s transition to independence from the Soviet Union. In a new Russian documentary covering the topic of ”pseudo-revolutions”, it is claimed that Latvian Army Officers shot civilians, ”much as the case was also on Maidan 2014” according to the movie. Of…
The Baltic presidents’ visit to the US has received special attention from the Kremlin-supported media in order to show that nothing serious has happened. Propaganda outlets tried to convey a message that not only Donald Trump has not promised anything to “the Pribalts”, but also that he has humiliated them. Some local Lithuanian periodicals put effort not to stay behind Kremlin’s disinformation channels. Their goal was not only to show…
