The first report is titled Russia's Information Influence Operations in the Nordic-Baltic Region and runs to a substantial 186 pages. It looks at Russia’s information influence operations since 2016 in eight countries: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden – the so-called 'NB8'.
The chapter on Latvia is by Juris Jurāns, researcher at the Centre for East European Policy Studies, who "takes a thorough look at Russia’s influence operations vis-à-vis Latvia in the polit-ical, diplomatic, economic, and media domains. The author discerns the main narratives under-mining Latvian national interests and describes how those are promoted in society. Against the historical background of deteriorating diplo-matic relations between Latvia and Russia, the author outlines the increasing aggressiveness in portraying Latvia as a failed state and efforts to divide society over the problem of integrat-ing the Russian-speaking population."
The second report is the slightly awkwardly-titled Do(n't) Shoot the Messenger: Psychological Responses to Kremlin Narratives in Nordic-Baltic Audiences and runs to a relatively svelte 33 pages.
"The study seeks to experimentally test for trust and affective responses to two common types of Kremlin narratives in Nordic-Baltic audiences, providing a nuanced analysis of possible motivations underlying responses to these narratives," says the introduction to the report, which examines five different audiences across four different states: Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Estonia's speakers of both Estonian and Russian as a first language.
Both reports make for an interesting read and are free to look at online and to download if you so desire via the links above.
