The Kremlin launches a hoax against the Baltic states that it used to invade Ukraine

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Three independent countries that were invaded by the USSR in 1940

However, the Kremlin is back to its old tricks, this time targeting the small Baltic states that regained their independence between 1990 and 1991, after half a century of Soviet occupation. An occupation whose terrible effects still persist today for the populations of those three countries—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia—which are members of NATO and the European Union.

Let us remember that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were invaded by the USSR in 1940 as part of the pact between Hitler and Stalin of August 1939, in which both dictators divided up several neighboring countries. In addition to the three mentioned above, Germans and Soviets jointly invaded Poland in September 1939, the USSR invaded Finland in November of that same year and in June 1940, Stalin's dictatorship invaded the Romanian regions of Bessarabia and Bukovina, annexing them to the Soviet Union.

Stalinism's Russification Campaigns in the Baltic Countries

Following the 1940 invasion, Stalin's dictatorship executed and deported many citizens of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia to Siberia, a practice it also carried out in eastern Poland and the aforementioned Romanian regions occupied by Moscow. After the end of World War II, the USSR carried out a new wave of deportations in the small occupied Baltic states.

Moscow's policy of weakening the national identity of Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians did not stop there: Moscow carried out Russification campaigns in the Baltic states, settling hundreds of thousands of Russian-speaking Soviets in the same territories whose native population had been partially executed or deported to Siberia. Even today, a significant portion of the populations of Latvia and Estonia, and to a lesser extent Lithuania, are ethnic Russians and speak Russian as a result of these forced Russification campaigns.

Putin uses Russian-speaking minorities to interfere in those countries

Since Vladimir Putin came to power, Moscow has been interfering in the Baltic states to create conflicts, using the Russian minority as its political battering ram. This is not an isolated practice: Moscow has done the same in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, using the Russian-speaking minorities in those countries to destabilize them, fostering separatism in Transnistria (a separatist region of Moldova that operates de facto as a communist republic controlled by Moscow), Abkhazia and South Ossetia (two regions of Georgia militarily occupied by Russia), and the eastern regions of Ukraine.

In fact, one of the hoaxes used by Moscow to invade Ukraine was the alleged discrimination against the Russian-speaking population, an accusation that the Kremlin has been fueling as a means of preventing Ukrainian from becoming the language of schooling throughout the country. Putin's dictatorship has been acting deceitfully so that the effects of Stalinist Russification are still present today and can be used by Moscow to claim territories from neighboring countries.

The Kremlin is once again targeting the Baltic states

Last Saturday, the Kremlin directed this same strategy against the Baltic states. At a press conference, Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, launched accusations of "Russophobia" against Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, listing a whole series of lies that portray these three democratic countries as authoritarian regimes that are allegedly persecuting Russians for their ethnicity and language. These false accusations are a psychological projection of what the Russian dictatorship does on its own territory to all those who oppose Putin's tyranny.

This is not the first time the Kremlin has launched these false accusations against these countries, but it is very revealing that it is doing so at a time when Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are preparing to face a possible Russian invasion, rearming and filling their borders with Belarus and Russia with anti-tank obstacles.

In 9 years, Moscow has launched more than 200 disinformation campaigns against those three countries

It should be noted that over the past nine years, the European External Action Service (EEAS) has detected more than 200 Kremlin disinformation campaigns against the Baltic states. Many of these campaigns coincide with the lies used by Russia to justify its aggression against Ukraine, which encourages the belief that the Kremlin is preparing the ground for further aggression.

Europe's rearmament should not only address possible armed aggression through the use of conventional weapons and the adoption of traditional defense mechanisms, but also respond to the psychological warfare operations with which the Kremlin seeks to justify future aggression and morally weaken its enemies. Recall that Russia plans to invest $1.42 billion in propaganda in 2025.

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Image: From left to right, flags of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.