Propaganda

Experts say Propaganda in Russia is worse now than at the height of the Cold War. One thing that Russia excels at in the Cold War and now, is Propaganda. Propaganda: (noun) "Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view." Back in the day, in the Soviet Union, the methods of propaganda were based on the Leninism-Marxism strategies of propaganda.


One of the goals of Russia’s propaganda is to suppress the will of people to resist, says Aurimas Navys, an officer from the Lithuanian army’s Strategic Communication Department.In his speech during a discussion on civic defence at the Seimas of Lithuania on Friday, he said that Russian television reaches 14 percent, or 405,000, residents of Lithuania.


According to Navys, there are several lines of Russia’s propaganda. The first aims at identifying the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with Belarus. The goal of the second one is to defame fighters for Lithuania’s independence, guerrilla fighters, spread disinformation about the Soviet aggression against Lithuania on January 13, 1991. One more line is aimed at spreading information degrading Lithuania, stating that it would not manage to defend itself.

Speaking about possible responses to propaganda, Navys stressed the role of ordinary citizens. He believes posts positive for the state in social media, in the media as well as videos positively representing Lithuania could be among possible responses.

“We are at war but it’s not the one we are used to seeing in movies,” the army representative said.

Following the discussion, held by the opposition Liberal Movement’s political group in the Seimas, later in the day new members of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union will be sworn in in Gediminas’ Tower in Vilnius.


Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has lead to an increase in the number of people taking interest in the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union which has seen an increase in applications by a third.

50 candidates turned to the union over the past month, the union’s Vilnius Riflemen’s Company said, and the majority of them will be sworn in on Friday. New members include businessmen, lawyers, economists, physicists, electric engineers, civil servants, politicians, journalists.

In the wake of new threats, Vilnius Riflemen’s Company plans to establish new divisions that will be in charge of information and cyber defence and education issues.

Established in 1919, the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union is a state-funded voluntary paramilitary civic self-defence organization assisting the state in ensuring national security.