Baltic states under pressure of Russian information campaigns as Vilnius hosts GlobalFact 2026
Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius have increasingly found themselves on the front line of what Baltic officials and European media describe as sustained Russian information operations, with the region often presented as a kind of testing ground for counter-disinformation tools and strategies.
A case frequently cited in reporting, including by Le Monde, goes back to January 2021 in Estonia’s Ida-Viru hospital, where a journalist from Eesti Päevaleht reportedly came across the Russian consul from nearby Narva receiving a discreet Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine shot. The detail is used by Baltic commentators to underline the contradiction between public narratives pushed at the time and private behaviour, amid wider campaigns in which Western vaccines were being publicly discredited in pro-Kremlin messaging.
Since then, officials in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania say the three capitals have been dealing on a near-daily basis with coordinated online narratives, cyber incidents and occasional security-related episodes that quickly spill into the information space. In May, a Russian drone crash in Lithuania was among the incidents that fed into both security discussions and a wider narrative battle in the region.
At the GlobalFact 2026 conference in Vilnius, Lithuanian Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas described Lithuania as “the country where the information battle is known for real”, urging European partners not to treat the Baltic experience as something peripheral. The conference itself brought together fact-checkers, journalists and media experts from dozens of countries and has become one of the main international gatherings for counter-disinformation work.
Across the region, officials and media organisations argue that Russian information campaigns are not isolated bursts but sustained operations aimed at weakening trust in NATO, amplifying internal divisions, undermining public institutions and eroding support for Ukraine. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have all repeatedly rejected claims circulating in Russian media suggesting their territory is being used to support Ukrainian strikes against Russia, calling such narratives part of broader disinformation efforts.
The Latvian Ministry of Defence, in a statement issued in March 2026, said Russia was conducting what it described as a large-scale coordinated information operation against the Baltic states, including the use of social media manipulation and targeted messaging toward Russian-speaking communities. Riga stressed that the Baltic states are not involved in planning or carrying out Ukrainian counterattacks, and said their support to Kyiv remains limited to military aid, humanitarian assistance and financial backing.
Officials in the region tend to describe their response as pragmatic rather than reactive — a mix of open communication, specialised strategic messaging units and close cooperation with fact-checking organisations. Vilnius hosting GlobalFact 2026, organised with the International Fact-Checking Network and Lithuanian partners including Delfi, has been repeatedly pointed to as an example of how the region has embedded itself in global verification networks.
The broader approach, as outlined by Baltic representatives, focuses on early detection of narratives, direct public clarification and attempts to reach audiences most exposed to disinformation, particularly Russian-speaking groups and younger users who are often targeted by coordinated online networks.
Vilnius, for a few days at least, has turned into a hub for that discussion, with hundreds of participants from around 80 countries debating how information warfare is evolving, and how artificial intelligence is changing both the spread of false narratives and the tools used to detect them.