Balancing freedom of speech and national security. Key highlights from LMF Talks in Riga

Russian aggression poses a major threat to established world order. While it’s Ukraine that’s battling a full-scale military invasion, other countries in Europe and beyond are facing hybrid threats like propaganda and economic oppression.

How can we counter the Russian threats more effectively? What are the tools available to fight the Kremlin’s propaganda, while also not encroaching on freedom of speech? How can Ukraine and Latvia learn from each other?

These questions shaped the LMF Talks event held by Lviv Media Forum in Riga on October 31. Moderated by Lviv Media Forum analyst Zoya Krasovska, the discussion featured:

We picked key highlights from the discussion, edited for length and clarity.

Come Back Alive, one of Ukraine’s biggest funds for military assistance that also conducts analytics on security and defense, prepared a major study “Transformation of the Russian Statehood” looking at Russian state capacity and its weaknesses.

Mariia Kucherenko noted, “Before Russian tanks and soldiers appeared in Crimea [in 2014], there was a lot of evidence of Russia using other tools of war. Most of all, economic tools and information tools. There was an enormous wave of propaganda inside Crimea around Euromaidan… We need to remember that tanks are only the final step. First options [of aggression] are in the informational and economic dimension, as well as in the diplomatic dimension”.

“In many countries, there’s no clear delineation between diplomatic institutions and branches of Russian security services”, Mariia Kucherenko said.

Russian propaganda draws on decades-long experience and centuries of colonial legacy. “We [in Latvia] have been a target of the Kremlin since 1991. Often, we speak about the here and now, we speak about Putin’s era. But actually, we have to think a bit broader. Attempts to influence our public opinion, influence our policymakers by disinformation, by intimidation, blackmail… have all been going on for decades… I think the main problem for us today is the Russification policy, which we had experienced since the 19th century. We had our brief 20 years of independence [before World War II], but then during the Soviet Union that was renewed with a new force”, Elina Lange-Ionatamishvili said.

Vox Ukraine regularly monitors Russian propaganda and disinformation. The “Propaganda Diary” project tracks the media landscape in six European countries, giving the organization a perspective into how the Kremlin pushes its narratives across the region.

In her presentation, Anastasiia Ivantsova indicated, “Russia tries to [have major influence on the public] through smaller appearances. They try to sell you one small narrative, then another, then another using minor media outlets. This approach legitimizes the narrative, and people start to talk about it at home, at work, on TV…”

The most popular propaganda narratives recorded by Vox Ukraine, as recounted by Anastasiia Ivantsova:

In Latvia, propaganda narratives about Ukraine aren’t particularly popular, Evita Purina said, but other kinds of disinformation pose a real threat.

The most successful propaganda narrative in Latvia is “the idea of ‘gender ideology' which is supposedly coming from the United States and from Brussels”, Evita Purina observed. People who support it "are advocating against the Istanbul Convention and transgender rights; they claim that sexual education is forced upon Latvia by the West". They do not support Russian aggression in Ukraine, but on this topic, their positions go in line with the Kremlin.

Russian propaganda is also widely using narratives around health and medicine, including anti-vaccination notions. Disinformation actors who start as anti-vaxxers end up spreading pro-Russian propaganda. Evita Purina cited an example of one prominent TikTok blogger. “[He] was a prominent anti-vaxxer a year or two ago. He is now very actively [commenting] on Ukraine… He is explaining why Ukraine is ‘not really fighting for its independence and fighting for the country’, that if it allows all this corruption to take place, then it really doesn’t want to end [the war], and all of this nonsense. We have other such ‘experts’ that are poisoning our society”.

As Anastasiia Ivantsova noted, “the main lesson we [in Ukraine] saw since 2014 is that cutting off the Russian information field, pro-Russian experts and television channels, from the Ukrainian information landscape is not a violation of free speech. It’s quite the opposite because cutting Russian informational bubbles from Ukraine creates a space for new voices, voices that are not corrupted with Russian propaganda and with Russian money”

“It is not enough to cut off Russian influence from the informational space. You need something to replace it”, Mariia Kucherenko said. In particular, it’s important to address the needs of the audience that used to rely on pro-Russian information before. “You need to create persuasive, clear and ‘bright’ content to persuade the audience that might not share pro-European and pro-Western views”.

As Elina Lange-Ionatamishvili highlighted, “the fact that Russian TV channels have to be cut off is beyond question because they have already gone beyond any decency. But the problem that we [in Latvia] have, and which perhaps Ukraine has as well, is that traditional media is not in the space of where the audience is. How much of our traditional media is actually on TikTok trying to reach audiences and talk to them? Of course, they are, but I think they are not really dominating the space as they would in the good old days when everything was dominated by television or newspapers or radio. I think this is something we need to tackle and this is something where we could probably learn from each other [between Ukraine and Latvia] as we go”.

Thanks to its experience battling the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has a lot to teach the world. “I think [Latvia] can learn much more from [Ukraine] than [vice versa]... No matter how well you are prepared and what plans and policies you have in place, when the X hour comes, all the good plans go out of the window. A lot of what [Ukraine did successfully] was on the spot: cooperation, self-help”, Elina Lange-Ionatamishvili said. As Mariia Kucherenko put it, “now we know Russians and who they are the best in the world because of the total tragedy of our nation”.