Baltic States Counter Russian Influence Operations Targeting Russian Minorities

As Moscow steps up its hybrid onslaught against the Baltic states, local Russ­ian-speak­ing pop­u­la­tions present a poten­tial weak spot to exploit. Russ­ian is the moth­er tongue of rough­ly one-quar­ter and one-third of the pop­u­la­tions of Esto­nia and Latvia, respec­tive­ly, two small nations at NATO’s east­ern fron­tier. Adopt­ing a “wartime” men­tal­i­ty — fueled by the war in Ukraine and Russ­ian aer­i­al incur­sions — Tallinn and Riga increas­ing­ly see this minor­i­ty as a poten­tial risk, says Ven­du­la Kazlauskas, an expert on the Baltic region at the Prague-based Asso­ci­a­tion for Inter­na­tion­al Affairs. Seek­ing to curb Moscow’s influ­ence, Latvia and Esto­nia are phas­ing out the Russ­ian lan­guage in edu­ca­tion, tight­en­ing immi­gra­tion rules, and tar­get­ing Russ­ian-linked organizations.

Read more: https://kyivindependent.com/question-of-self-preservation-baltic-states-move-to-curb-moscows-sway-over-their-russian-speakers/

Key Points

• Rus­sia per­sis­tent­ly seeks to influ­ence Esto­ni­a’s Russ­ian-speak­ing com­mu­ni­ty by weaponiz­ing vir­tu­al­ly every sphere of human activ­i­ty includ­ing lan­guage, cul­ture, and sports, with pro­pa­gan­da efforts inten­si­fy­ing after Moscow’s full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine in 2022.
• Secu­ri­ty expert Marek Kohv says Rus­sia uses social media and online por­tals to pro­mote nar­ra­tives about the decline of the West and alleged oppres­sion of Russ­ian speak­ers as part of broad­er hybrid operations.
• Latvia amend­ed immi­gra­tion laws requir­ing Russ­ian nation­als to pass basic lan­guage tests and under­go secu­ri­ty checks, while Esto­nia barred non-EU cit­i­zens from vot­ing in local elec­tions, pri­mar­i­ly affect­ing Russ­ian cit­i­zens with­out local passports.
• Esto­ni­a’s Deputy Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al for Inter­nal Secu­ri­ty stat­ed that coun­ter­ing Rus­si­a’s long-term pro­pa­gan­da and dis­in­for­ma­tion threat tar­get­ing the pop­u­la­tion is a ques­tion of self-preser­va­tion for the small nation.

Russian Influence Operations in the Baltic States: Social Media Manipulation, Disinformation Campaigns, and Strategic Threats

Russ­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions in the Baltic states employ a sophis­ti­cat­ed blend of social media manip­u­la­tion, soft pow­er strate­gies, and dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns designed to exploit eth­nic divi­sions and under­mine demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions. Moscow uses plat­forms like Telegram, Tik­Tok, Face­book, and X to spread claims of dis­crim­i­na­tion against Russ­ian-speak­ing minori­ties in Esto­nia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

These nar­ra­tives por­tray Baltic gov­ern­ment lan­guage poli­cies as oppres­sion while brand­ing restric­tions on Russ­ian state media as vio­la­tions of free speech, with some pro­pa­gan­da com­par­ing such mea­sures to Nazi actions. Face­book accounts dis­guised as local com­mu­ni­ty groups such as “Tallinners” or “Russ­ian-speak­ing Esto­nia” push con­tent sug­gest­ing that aid to Ukraine is fool­ish and that life was prefer­able under Russ­ian influence.

The strate­gic depth of these oper­a­tions extends beyond dig­i­tal plat­forms. A 136-page ana­lyt­i­cal report released by Rus­sia in 2024 detailed strate­gies to enhance soft pow­er through edu­ca­tion, cul­ture, and social net­works to bypass pro­pa­gan­da restric­tions. Accord­ing to secret Krem­lin doc­u­ments obtained by an inter­na­tion­al jour­nal­ism con­sor­tium, Moscow’s plans include fund­ing pro-Russ­ian NGOs, pre­serv­ing Russ­ian-lan­guage edu­ca­tion, oppos­ing the demo­li­tion of Sovi­et mon­u­ments, and cre­at­ing con­di­tions that would force Baltic author­i­ties to rec­og­nize NATO expan­sion as dam­ag­ing to nation­al security.

The doc­u­ments, pre­pared by the Direc­torate for Cross-Bor­der Coop­er­a­tion direct­ly under Vladimir Putin’s admin­is­tra­tion in autumn 2021, reveal long-term objec­tives to restore “con­struc­tive rela­tions” with Lithua­nia while main­tain­ing infor­ma­tion influ­ence over Russ­ian-speak­ing minori­ties in Esto­nia and Latvia through both con­ven­tion­al and online media.

Beyond infor­ma­tion war­fare, Rus­sia has employed cyber-enabled oper­a­tions with mea­sur­able impact on region­al sta­bil­i­ty. A state-spon­sored cyber espi­onage group des­ig­nat­ed UNC1151 con­ducts the “Ghost­writer” cam­paign, which pro­motes nar­ra­tives crit­i­cal of NATO’s pres­ence in East­ern Europe while com­pro­mis­ing social media accounts of Pol­ish offi­cials to pub­lish polit­i­cal­ly dis­rup­tive content.

Quan­ti­ta­tive research pub­lished in Pub­lic Integri­ty found that Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion increas­es per­ceived dis­trust of gov­ern­ments and height­ens the sense of mil­i­tary threat, with observ­able decreas­es in cit­i­zens’ incen­tives for invest­ment activ­i­ties. Lithua­ni­a’s secu­ri­ty ser­vices report that recent cam­paigns spread false infor­ma­tion about explo­sives in schools, timed to coin­cide with the aca­d­e­m­ic year and a teach­ers’ strike, with approx­i­mate­ly 900 Russ­ian-lan­guage false warn­ings received by local police.

The Baltic states have respond­ed with com­pre­hen­sive pro­tec­tive mea­sures. Esto­nia tran­si­tioned to Eston­ian-only school instruc­tion by 2030, while Latvia man­dat­ed that pub­lic media broad­cast exclu­sive­ly in Lat­vian or Euro­pean lan­guages by 2026. Esto­nia also enact­ed leg­is­la­tion requir­ing the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church to sev­er ties with the Moscow Patri­ar­chate, reflect­ing con­cerns about the Church’s role as a vehi­cle for Krem­lin-aligned narratives.

For­mer Lat­vian Pres­i­dent Egils Lev­its empha­sized that nation­al cohe­sion and clear iden­ti­ty serve as the pri­ma­ry defense against Russ­ian inter­fer­ence, warn­ing of Moscow’s “unde­feat­ed impe­ri­al­is­tic spir­it.” Research from the George C. Mar­shall Euro­pean Cen­ter for Secu­ri­ty Stud­ies notes that Rus­sia views the Baltic states not as ter­ri­to­ries to recon­quer but as lever­age points against NATO, the EU, and the Unit­ed States—part of Moscow’s broad­er “polit­i­cal war” with the West that com­bines mil­i­tary deploy­ments, A2AD capa­bil­i­ties, exer­cis­es, infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions, and polit­i­cal sub­ver­sion through front orga­ni­za­tions and parties.

Exter­nal References:
— The Baltic States as Tar­gets and Levers: The Role of the Region in Russ­ian Strategy
— Russ­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions against Baltic states and Poland hav­ing ‘sig­nif­i­cant impact’ on society
— Secret Krem­lin doc­u­ment reveals Rus­si­a’s plans for Baltic states

Dis­claimer:
The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.