DISINFO: Baltic countries are preparing for war during the pandemic
SUMMARY
The Baltic countries are preparing for war during the pandemic. Even in conditions of emergency and quarantine, the armed forces of the Baltic countries are not ready to give up large-scale exercises. The civilians are unhappy with this – the situation, according to civilians, is not very good for the rattling of weapons.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the West/ NATO threatening or encircling Russia and the US-led military exercise "Defender-Europe 2020". The disinformation message aims to present the Baltic States as militaristic and their armed forces as lacking the support of civilian population. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many joint military exercises have been cancelled. On 16 March, U.S. European Command (EUCOM) issued a press release which stated that exercise Defender-Europe 2020 has been modified in size and scope. Essentially, all movement of personnel and equipment from the United States to Europe has ceased and several of the linked exercises have been cancelled. The list of cancelled exercises includes Dynamic Front (a Joint Fire exercise), Joint Warfighting Assessment (U.S. Army’s largest annual live, multinational experiment, focused on Multi-Domain Operations), Saber Strike (a combined-joint exercise to take place in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland) and Swift Response (to demonstrate the strategic employment of the Global Response Force to Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania). See other examples of disinformation about NATO in our database, such as its never-ending provocations, its attempts to block Moscow in its sphere of influence, the Alliance's permanent targeting of Russia and Belarus, its role as a US subjugation tool for other countries and its unreliability to defend its members or its plans to continue attacking other countries.