On 8 May, Head of ICDS Security and Resilience Programme Dr Ivo Juurvee participated in a workshop ‘Social Media and Conflict Escalation’ organised by King’s College London (KCL).
He delivered a presentation on the role of social media in NATO-Russia relations, discussing the Russian doctrines in the field of information warfare and providing some examples related to the exploitation of social media to undermine public support to NATO’s eFP battlegroups deployed in the Baltic states. A special interest was shown by some members of the audience in the faked press release of the US Department of Defense, circulated in the social media in 2017 and claiming that one US bomber lost a dummy nuclear bomb over Lithuania’s territory. The resilience of the public to such falsifications was demonstrated by fact that this authentic-looking story did not receive any wide circulation. The Baltic states have already been recognised as being among leaders in Europe when it comes to building societal resilience as a way to counter malicious influence campaigns conducted by Russia.