Russia has become an expert in what is called secret war (or 5th generation war) in the recent years. The goal in the secret war is to gain as much control and influence over other countries as possible. Propaganda and economic leverage are among the first steps in a secret war aimed to prevent a country from taking hostile actions against the country that employs secret war.
Russia’s secret war is clearly visible in the Eastern Ukraine where Russia seems to be always one step ahead of the game. Since it are not overt actions that are being employed, Russia will always have a possible deniability. Lithuania however is keen on countering Russia’s tactics to employ secret war in this country and three steps are already taken to pull Lithuania out of the Russian sphere of influence.
Energy independence
On October 27th Lithuania welcomed the arrival of the FRSU Independence at the Baltic Sea port of Klaipeda. The FRSU Independence is a liquefied natural gas terminal that is capable to transport 80% of the consumption of gas in the Baltic States. However deliveries to Latvia and Estonia can only be done once the existing pipelines are upgraded. This expected to be done by the end of 2015.
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| FRSU Independence |
Previous all the Baltic States needed Russian gas to meet their consumption. This gas was provided by the Kremlin backed Gazprom company. This gave Russia huge economic leverage of these three countries as well as the opportunity to charge any gas price it wanted. One ship is thus capable of breaking the Russian influence over the energy security of the Baltic States, reducing the amount of soft power Russia can employ on these countries.
Marking of Russian consumer goods
Lithuania also started to mark several Russian made consumer goods with a Colorado bug sticker. The Colorado bug was chosen for its resemblance with the Ribbon of St. George that is used to label Russian products.
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| Lithuanian Colorado bug mark |
Lithuania’s reason for this action was to undermine the commerce in these goods. It believes that these products, advertised on several Russian news stations, help funding Kremlin controlled news agencies that spread propaganda throughout the region.
The ultimate goal of this action is to prevent Lithuanian citizens to buy Russian goods, therefor undermining Russia’s influence on the Lithuanian markets. Although this is a very provocative move it is an effective form of economic warfare and to influence the people to prevent them from buying Russian products.
However for Lithuania the campaign is backfiring as most labelled products are made in Lithuania itself or imported from Poland. Still, it shows how far Lithuania is willing to go to undermine Russia and its influences inside Lithuania.
Anti-propaganda television
Lithuania also faces to be the victim of a propaganda war by the Kremlin. Russian-language television programs have an audience of 15% of the population or around 400.000 people. Lithuania has an ethnic Russian minority in its borders and Russia already used these minorities to justify its interactions in Georgia, the Crimea and the Eastern Ukraine. Russian propaganda can therefor reach 15% of the Lithuanian population and spread misinformation. This misinformation can influence thus a large part of the population to mistrust the Lithuanian state, the EU and NATO and thus becomes a threat to the national security.
Lithuania already imposed new laws to fine television companies spreading Russian propaganda. These fines can go up to 3% of the annual income of these companies. Lithuania also used EU subsidies to fund a new television company. This company is planned to broadcast in Russian to reach the earlier mentioned 15% of the population and counter the Russian propaganda.
