Lithuania, in debunking the dishonesty germane to Russian propaganda exposed the themes which Russia consistently uses. The country’s Civic Resilience Initiative (CRI) issued a report detailing research results from a study between June 13 and August 28. It analyzed the content of the Russian messages, most of which were posted on RuBaltic.Ru.
Estonia’s Propastop, a Defense League unit expert in Russian propaganda, has summarized the CRI study. They have identified some basic narratives. The most utilized were: Russophobic countries; Russian culture as victim; the West suffering more from sanctions than Russia; Russia is winning the war; Ukrainians commit war crimes and target civilians; the West is abandoning Ukraine.
The narratives also engage the Baltic states in some other falsehoods: politicians in the Baltic states who condemn the war are Nazis; the countries have no capacity to counter the Russian military; support for Russia’s war is far above the small pro-Moscow groupings in the diaspora.
Propaganda themes originating in Russia are bolstered by local Russian-speaking social media sources in the Baltic states. On August 16 Estonian authorities relocated an occupation-era monument, a Soviet tank from Narva to The War Museum in Tallinn. For Estonians the tank symbolized the 50 years of repressive rule from Moscow.
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