{"id":16420,"date":"2021-02-11T13:30:31","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T13:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/informnapalm.org\/en\/?p=16420"},"modified":"2021-02-13T10:00:36","modified_gmt":"2021-02-13T10:00:36","slug":"psychological-operations-targeting-relations-between-poland-and-lithuania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/informnapalm.org\/en\/psychological-operations-targeting-relations-between-poland-and-lithuania\/","title":{"rendered":"A short review of the infosphere-based information and psychological operations targeting relations between Poland and Lithuania"},"content":{"rendered":"

Illustration:\u00a0<\/em>Lithuania and Poland\u00a0\u00a9\u00a0Shutterstock<\/em><\/p>\n

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Report prepared by INFO OPS Poland Foundation<\/a> and by our partners in Lithuania Res Publica<\/a> \u2013 Civic Resilience Center. First time published in ResPublica web page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Introduction<\/h2>\n

Relations between Poland and Lithuania play an important role in maintaining regional stability in Central- and Eastern Europe and therefore are being constantly tested by adversaries. Deeply committed to strengthening NATO\u2019s defense and security capabilities on the eastern flank,\u00a0 both countries tighten civil and military cooperation. To hinder this development, Russian Federation has significantly increased its involvement in manipulative operations aimed at negatively influencing the mutual perception of the two countries.\u00a0 Russian propaganda and disinformation outlets tirelessly try to undermine the mutual trust of the societies and\u00a0 thus to weaken the social foundations of Poland\u2019s and Lithuania\u2019s security. Since both countries directly neighbour Russian Kaliningrad exclave – which plays a major role in Russian strategic ballistic weapon dislocation in Europe –\u00a0 Polish-Lithuanian relations have important meaning for the European Union\u2019s security as such. In the wider context both Poland and Lithuania are key NATO allies providing necessary means to maintain security of Baltic States in general. Geographic proximity and common goals help to develop regional strategies in terms of defense and command structure within NATO – together with Poland, Baltic States are part of the same Alliance\u2019s defense plans and those will be extended for the entire region within the NATO Eastern flank thanks to – among other things – the dislocation of units to the Elbl\u0105g Division Command.<\/p>\n

Connecting Estonia and Latvia with the rest of the European Union, Polish-Lithuanian border serves as a bridge for major different infrastructure projects and primarily energy ones. Ongoing synchronization of the energy networks of the Baltic States with the continental European networks through the territory of Poland as well as the construction of the Poland-Lithuania gas pipeline significantly contribute to the regional energy security and\u00a0 remain in the main area of Russian interest. Hence, they are constantly tested in terms of manipulative operations.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the area, be it military cooperation, energy security or manipulative information operations, supposed to negatively influence the mutual perception of Polish and Lithuanian societies, there is the character of multidimensional activities. They are carried out in the media – especially Polish-speaking Russian media outlets – social networks, blogosphere and other dedicated areas in the virtual information environment. To enhance their effectiveness, they are often completed by different forms of events inspired in the physical dimension, like provocations, staged and orchestrated social events and others, which could be generally described as the active measures<\/em>: information, political, military and economic pressure, exerted by the Russian Federation against Poland and Lithuania and in particular against mutual relations.<\/p>\n

The specific features directly related to the Russian influence operations<\/strong> targeting the Polish-Lithuanian relations described above can be divided into several groups by the methodology regarding the implementation of the Russian active measures. Those activities\u00a0 consist of the comprehensive set of manipulative operations, journalism, disinformation, provocation, cyber attacks and other active information operations measures. The most important techniques and means include:<\/p>\n