Pro-Russian online sources are promoting false claims that Baltic states have allowed Ukraine to use their airspace to attack Russia, according to the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab).
The Digital Forensic Research Lab is a research unit of the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank. It studies disinformation, online influence operations and the manipulation of digital information.
Its analysts found that from late March to early May, pro-Russian sources generated a “significant number” of reports about an alleged wave of drone incidents in the Baltic region.
The reports fed a new narrative claiming that Latvia, Estonia and other Baltic states had opened their airspace to help Ukraine strike Russian targets.
The claims were built around two real incidents. On March 25, two Ukrainian drones heading toward targets in Russia crashed in Latvia and Estonia. On May 7, drones crashed in Latvia.
DFRLab said in a June study that the second incident was used by pro-Kremlin sources to fabricate reports that drones had struck a passenger train and a residential building, and that five people had been killed in the May 7 incident.
The Latvian incident triggered a political crisis in the country. It was followed by the resignation of the defense minister and the prime minister. A new government was formed on May 28.
The study said Russia had particularly intensified aggressive rhetoric toward Latvia. It cited remarks by Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, during a UN Security Council meeting on May 19.
Nebenzya, citing Russian intelligence services, claimed that Latvia had made its territory available to Ukrainian forces.
Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže rejected the accusation, as did other participants at the meeting.
On May 22, the foreign ministers of eight Nordic and Baltic countries issued a joint statement condemning Russian disinformation.
DFRLab said its multilingual analysis of social media content identified 795 mentions of the March 25 incident and 2,496 mentions of the May 7 incident.
More than half of the analyzed posts about the March 25 crashes, 51.8 percent, came from Russia and were hostile toward Ukraine, NATO, or both. In the case of the May 7 incident in Latvia, such content appeared in 45.6 percent of posts.
The researchers found that most Russian-origin or anti-Ukrainian and anti-NATO posts were in Spanish and Portuguese. Russian-origin content also has been appearing in English, French and Estonian.
DFRLab said that in Portuguese, French and Spanish-language online spaces, most hostile sources were aimed mainly at audiences outside Europe.
Portuguese-language Russian disinformation targeted Brazil. Spanish-language content was directed at Latin American countries. French-language material reached the francophone populations in Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Algeria.
Some of the material, including content published in Cameroonian media, was later repeated by Chinese state media.
DFRLab said this copying tactic showed how Russian and Chinese actors worked together to obscure Russian traces in BRICS countries, including Brazil, India and South Africa, and the broader Global South.
US analysts reported similar Russian and Chinese disinformation activity in 2024.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP