Russian Influence and Hybrid Operations, Pyysalo for The Geopost: Balkans Must Fight Disinformation

Hybrid operations and disinformation have become powerful tools to influence political and social developments, and Russia, through these tactics, has significantly influenced various regions, including the Baltic states, Ukraine and the Balkans, aiming for destabilization and division.

This is what Tapio Pyysalo, Director of International Relations at “Hybrid CoE”, says in an interview for The Geopost, while underlining that the Balkans must strengthen resilience against disinformation.

Full interview:

The Geopost: Can you tell us about Russian influence and hybrid operations in your region?

Pyysalo: Well, recently actually I think much of the focus has been on the other cable cuts in the Baltic Sea and also disinformation related to those, but of course one of the major events recently was also the disconnection from the Russian electric grid of the Baltic countries and we did see a lot of disinformation activity related to that event as well, but in the end I think everything went well and this sort of disentanglement from connections to Russia is really important for the region of course.

The Geopost: What is the situation in the Baltic States? How do you identify and fight these challenges?

Pyysalo: Well, I would actually say that the Baltic states have always had sort of strong resilience against disinformation because of, for example, decades of media literacy education and there’s also sort of good consensus and trust in the society in many of the Baltic countries, so I think it’s difficult for Russia to reach their objectives with disinformation, but at the same time the Baltic countries are also building their defenses against disinformation, for example by monitoring the media environment, recognizing narratives that are gaining ground and debunking those narratives using, for example, active strategic communications and so on, but I think the societies in the Baltic states are actually quite well prepared for the disinformation.

The Geopost: What challenges do you see in Ukraine today? How do you view these challenges now, three years after the Russian aggression in Ukraine?

Pyysalo: Well, Ukraine is of course a very special example, very actively targeted by Russian disinformation all the time, but over the years I think they’ve also established sort of very strong defenses against this disinformation. They have basically the whole of society

working together to counter disinformation. They’re very good at debunking and pre-bunking disinformation. They have great systems and procedures in place. The whole civil society is very active. They have a lot of resources being put into debunking disinformation, so I think for them as well they’re quite resilient. They can use a lot of resources and they do use a lot of resources. They’re good at identifying narratives that are gaining ground and they’re good at debunking them, so I think their defenses are definitely in place.

The Geopost: What is your message to journalists in the Balkans, especially in Kosovo, and to organizations that are fighting all this disinformation, because the Russian influence in the Balkans is also very high?

Pyysalo: I think we’re actually seeing Russia use pretty much the same narratives in the Baltics as also in Balkans, for example trying to divide the European Union, trying to stop it from expanding, trying to impede these EU accession processes, for example, also blaming the West for aggression while it is actually Russia that is conducting aggression against Ukraine and so on. So pretty much I think the narratives are similar and we’re being challenged by the same kinds of methods. I guess the main message would be for the Balkans to really sort of strengthen resilience against disinformation, strengthen media literacy, and strengthen democratic institutions to have better trust in the society, because if you have good trust in the society then also the sort of official messages and government strategic communication has a better chance to win in that media environment.

/The Geopost