As the analysts of the Strategic Communication Department of the Lithuanian Armed Forces announced on Tuesday, 3,520 unique cases of hostile information activity were recorded in 2023, the most popular topics being NATO, the alleged upcoming war between the Alliance and Russia, the Russia-Ukraine war, Lithuania-Belarus, Lithuania-Russia relations, as well as the Vilnius NATO summit.
“Fear is a weapon – it is very important to understand that modern warfare is not just regarding tanks on land, planes in the air or ships at sea. Psychological information operations are reaching us, they encourage mistrust of the state, reduce citizens’ will to fight, question NATO’s fifth article, support for Ukraine also becomes a target”, Giedrius Valintėlis, director of the Strategic Communication Department of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, said at a press conference on Tuesday.
According to him, the impact of hostile propaganda can lead to polarization or even division of social groups.
Dominyka Daškevičiūtė, an analyst at the Department of Strategic Communication, said that the most popular narratives on hostile channels were related to the modernization of the Lithuanian army, military acquisitions, the questionable activation of NATO’s fifth article, and talk regarding the German brigade.
“One of the most popular narratives is that the German brigade will pose a threat to Russia, as well as that Lithuania will be occupied by German soldiers,” the analyst said.
According to analysts, there have been attempts to shape the opinion of the Lithuanian audience that the Lithuanian army is incapable of defending the country, and increasing its funding will not improve the situation.
They notice that the manipulative messages aimed at the Kremlin’s internal audience also reached the Lithuanian audience. The spread of hostile propaganda was aimed at contrasting Lithuanian defense funding with social security and education issues.
Most attacks during a NATO meeting
The greatest informational pressure from hostile channels was observed during the NATO summit in Vilnius last July.
According to the representatives of the army, the hostile information space was intensively prepared for this event in advance, and the day before and the second day of the meeting were characterized by the highest number of incidents in the entire year 2023, when the information pressure increased 3-4 times compared to the average number of cases per day.
A large number of information incidents last year were also recorded during other high-visibility events: the visit of US President Joe Biden to Warsaw and Kyiv in February, the Ministerial meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in November.
Last year, the flow of hostile information spread was characterized by accusations once morest Lithuania and NATO, which were accused of provoking Russia and Belarus, and also aimed at attacking these countries. The military capabilities of NATO and the Lithuanian army, as well as Western economic and military support for Ukraine, were also targeted.
According to analysts, the Kremlin and Minsk have spread claims through their controlled channels that NATO’s military activities near the borders of Russia and Belarus in the Baltic countries and Poland pose a threat to them. According to the military, this informational cover was intended to justify Russia’s actions, which caused tension in the entire region: the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus, the deployment and activities of Wagner mercenaries in the country, and the Russian-Belarusian military exercises held in September.
“Although Russian channels are restricted and their hostile information activities face difficulties, especially in our society, their messages and narratives often spread through representatives of different sections of our society or the national media. Last year, we had situations when the Kremlin’s narratives were distributed through our own channels, so sometimes we have to pause once more and assess whether everything has been done so that this does not happen once more,” says G. Valintėlis.
They lied regarding sending Lithuanian soldiers to the front
Analysts of the army’s information environment identified that the information operation once morest the Grand Hetman Konstantinos Ostrogiškis brigade – LITPOLUKRBRIG – started in April last year and continued until the end of July.
This joint military training unit of Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine was established on September 19, 2014 in Warsaw.
According to the report, disinformation was spread regarding the brigade’s potential involvement in the war in Ukraine under the guise of a peacekeeping mission, falsely claiming that the recruitment of soldiers had begun in Lithuania. It is written that two dates for the entry of the Polish and Lithuanian contingent into Western Ukraine are being considered: the first – at the end of July, immediately following the NATO summit, and the second – at the beginning of autumn.
LITPOLUKRBRIG was also mentioned in the context of possible terrorist attacks in Belarus. The statement of former NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen that some NATO countries may deploy their troops in Ukraine was manipulatively linked by hostile channels to the sending of LITPOLUKRBRIG to the war zone.
According to analysts, the LITPOLUKRBRIG topic was manipulated to justify the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus and to discredit the NATO Summit. It was also aimed at discrediting the brigade itself, portraying it as a NATO toy or a springboard for Lithuania to get involved in the war.
According to army analysts, the lies regarding the sending of Lithuanian soldiers to the front were also aimed at causing confusion and fear within the Lithuanian army and among future soldiers, but these efforts to influence the Lithuanian population did not work, because the lies did not spread in the country’s information space.
#thousand #cases #hostile #propaganda #targeting #support #Ukraine #German #brigade
2024-04-23 13:02:36
