Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review

The art form of impersonating others is not exempt from this trend and has been incorporated into the soft-power arsenal. This precise and meticulously chosen tool for conducting information attacks may be far more effective than simple hard power: it can affect millions, discredit influential people, and split societies into factions based on the behaviour, speeches, and expressions of public figures. For example, if the prime minister of a neighbouring country expresses an opinion on sensitive issues in an official statement about upcoming events in the country, it could lead to the loss of population trust in that leader and, simultaneously, leave the message open to competing interpretations. One of the lesser-known tools for conducting information attacks in the Russian soft power arsenal is telephone trolling by pranksters. Thus, like a chef de cuisine, Russia’s political-military establishment is searching for recipes to prepare meals for the ’public’s eyes and minds. What would be the most suitable ingredients to prepare a popular dish? How should the final product be delivered? Who should be the target audience? Will it be aimed at a domestic audience or directed abroad (for example, at neighbouring countries and/or other regions and continents)? Ingredients for the dish might be personal dissenting opinions of influential politicians, famous actors, etc. The careful selection of targets and the use of different methods to extract information by provoking a target person allow attackers to obtain sensitive material and then build campaigns to publicise such information or to use it in subtle geopolitical games. These operations can play a crucial role in influencing people — such as a targeted country’s political leaders and influential celebrities — to steer an ongoing process in a desired direction.

By exploiting the potential of social media, disinformation has become an important element of warfare. The region of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is particularly vulnerable to disinformation, primarily from Russia. One of the reasons for Russia’s activities in this region’s infosphere is that most CEE countries are members of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In this context, Russian disinformation activities aimed at the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) are particularly interesting. The image of the 3SI created in the media is crucial, for it translates into how the public understands, perceives and recalls this format of cooperation. The article aims to reconstruct the image of the 3SI in cases of Russian disinformation identified by the European External Action Service within the EUvsDisinfo project. The article’s methodology is based on a qualitative content analysis of disinformation cases identified by EUvsDisinfo. The article identifies four main frames of disinformation targeting the 3SI, showing that Russian disinformation is focused on undermining the credibility and integrity of this cooperation, both among Initiative countries and between them and their international partners.

The article discusses the use of technologies for influencing the weather by the main actors of international relations and the potential consequences of the use of these technologies on global security. The authors showed that technologies for influencing the weather are currently being actively studied and legally applied in developed countries of the world (for example, in the USA, China, Russia and the United Arab Emirates) for precipitation management. However, the use of such systems for military purposes can pose serious threats not only for countries using such technologies and their neighbors, but also on a global scale, especially since the consequences of using methods of influencing the weather are not well understood in the long term. The authors believe that one of the ways to control the use of technologies for influencing weather on global level is the creation of a special international monitoring service, which will be responsible for coordinating research and the use of weather management technologies by states.

This article discusses the Ukrainian legislation on cybersecurity. The necessity of developing an efficient cybersecurity system was raised by the hybrid war conducted by Russia over the last few years, in which many critical infrastructure objects have been destroyed with serious consequences not only for the end consumers but also for the security of the state. Consequently, Ukraine has begun issuing a number of laws aiming at strengthening its cyber defense capabilities by establishing an efficient national cybersecurity system. The analysis has clearly shown that although important steps have already been taken in this direction, much still remains to be done to protect the Ukrainian critical infrastructure.

Russian economic reforms of the 1990s triggered off the massive economic transformation that went hand in hand with worsening of the life prospects of the population, rising of unemployment, inflation, personal debts and creating social unrests among other security issues. The new economic perspectives offered by the free and open market created the previously unthinkable incentives for many people. Borrowing and lending became fully legal endeavors and the new economic order offered unprecedented opportunities and a variety of consumer goods and services that were previously unavailable. One of the outcomes of this process was the sharp increase in the number of debts and personal insolvency issues. It appears that many Russian citizens lacked the financial literacy and healthy judgement in their financial management that led to the problems of economic insolvency debt. This paper focuses on the issue of personal economic and financial security in Russian Federation. We analyze the available data before and after the economic crisis of the 2007-2009 and the recent sanctions to demonstrate the patterns of borrowing behavior of the Russians. Our results show that borrowing decreased in the recent months following the introduction of economic sanctions which can be explained by the overall feeling of uncertainty and the fear of economic collapse of various households. We argue that good financial literacy might increase the basic economic awareness and contribute to the better security in the everyday life in the Russian Federation.