Lithuania’s weekly paper of Russian minority Litovskiy Kuryer on 19 November published an article about a recent presentation of a project called “Humanitarian Aspects of Russia’s Foreign Policy Towards Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and the Baltic Countries”.  It is interesting to see how the Lithuania’s minority paper views this report.

Lithuania’s Russians Are Kremlin’s Weapon? by Denis Tarasenko

Moscow does not hide that all former USSR Republics are within its zone of exclusive influence. It does not matter that some former USSR Republics have already joined NATO and the EU, they still remain “the near abroad,” with all the ensuing consequences.

Lately, Russia has been doing nothing else but building up its invisible presence in these counties, including Lithuania. Russia is not really worried about its compatriots, but it finds it convenient to use us (the compatriots) as a means to achieve its geopolitical goals. These thoughts were expressed by the political scientists from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, who presented their research on Russia’s influence in the former USSR Republics in Vilnius last week, Litovskiy Kuryer writes.

On All Fronts
The research, which the authors called “Humanitarian Aspects of Russia’s Foreign Policy Towards Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and the Baltic Countries,” was conducted for the first time. Political scientists from these countries tried to define and describe Russia’s activities in its “near abroad” in five key areas: Russia’s practical experience in the area of human rights, Russia’s policy towards the Russian-speaking population living outside Russia, Russia’s consular activities, partnership in the areas of culture and science, and the Russian media and the press in the aforementioned countries.

In the past, we heard some paranoid and hysterical statements that the concert of the Russian group Lube on the day of Lithuania’s independence and the planned for the beginning of 2010 concert of Alla Pugachiova was a special operation planned by Russia to discredit the Lithuanian independence day, but this time the political scientists had a grown-up approach to the research.

Litovskiy Kuryer further writes, they analysed the activities of Russian public organizations, the influence of Russian culture, the level of knowledge of the Russian language, and the work of the Lithuanian Russian-language and the Russian press and media in Lithuania.

I have to admit the work was factual rather than emotional. The 352 pages of the research mainly contain facts from publicly accessible sources; there are no fallacies or any kind of conclusions. It simply presents information, such as that the First Baltic Channel is becoming more and more popular and that its audience are not just ethnic Russians, but also many Lithuanian Poles and Lithuanians; that Lithuanian television channels start broadcasting more and more of Russian serials and talk shows, which are often broadcast with subtitles and no dubbing; that more and more of new publications come to the Lithuanian market, including the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda; and that new Russian-language projects appear on the Internet, and that they instantly become popular among Internet users, reported Denis Tarasenko sais.

Compatriots Become a Weapon
“The purpose of this research was to analyse Russia’s influence in neighbouring countries, and this is exactly what was done. The research was carried out in Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia,” Monika Greta Tuckute, director of the Centre for Geopolitical Studies, told the journalists after the presentation of the research by the experts at the conference. She said that each country had one expert for collecting and summarizing the information. “The main goal was to reveal the means that Russia uses to maintain its influence and to strengthen it,” the expert said to Litovskiy Kuryer.

She gave an example that Lithuania’s Russian-speaking population says in opinion polls that their rights are not violated and that they are sufficiently satisfied with the situation in the country.

“It is another issue how Russia interprets the situation of the Russian-speaking Lithuanian citizens.  Lithuania is presented as a country where the living conditions of the Russian-speaking population are not the best. This is the biggest paradox, because Russia has an absolutely different interpretation of the life of Russians in Lithuania and thus creates and image of Lithuania as a fairly hostile country that does not want to create a positive climate for its Russian-speaking citizens,” Tuckute said.

She noted, Litovskiy Kuryer writes, that the results of the research show however that the country that is being seen as having the most hostile attitude towards the Russians is Georgia and in the Baltic countries – Estonia. The Lithuanian expert said that Russia presents the situation of the Russians living outside Russia as negative in the countries where some conflict or scandal takes place. As an example she mentioned the transfer of the Bronze Soldier in Estonia.

When asked by the paper, whether there have been any scandals in Lithuania that could provoke Russia to react, Tuckute gave a negative reply. “We have not had any conflict situations lately. The only case we could mention here is the scandal when Modest Kolerov (editor-in-chief of Regnum.ru) was denied entry to Lithuania on his way to a conference organized by Litovskiy Kuryer). But I do not think that it was the case that could have a negative effect on our relations,” Tuckute said. She said that Russia uses economic and energy aspects when dealing with Lithuania, not the aspect involving the rights of the Russian minority.

As an example she mentioned the Druzhba Pipeline incident in 2006. The delivery of oil to Lithuania via the pipeline was stopped. Another example is that Russia has restricted the import of Lithuanian dairy products.

The expert said to Litovskiy Kuryer that, in her opinion, Russia tends to create artificial problems from the things that happen in the natural course of events, the events that are not usually deliberately planned. For example, she said that Russian schools in Lithuania are being closed not because Lithuania does not allow its Russian-speaking citizens to get education in their native language, but because there are not enough students and thus several schools merge into one. By the way, the research notes that pubic opinion polls show that Russian families tend to send their children to Lithuanian schools, because they hope that this would help them integrate into society and it would be easier for them to find a job.

Tuckute said that the problem of the people living in Visaginas, where the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant is located, is the real problem. The majority of Visaginas residents are Russian-speaking people. She said that, in her opinion, it was indeed necessary to pay attention to this problem, because it is not clear what these people will be doing after the nuclear plant is shut down at the end of this year.

For Propaganda Purposes
According to another Lithuanian expert, political scientist Nerijus Maliukevicius, it is normal that countries take care of their national minorities, and that this is what Western countries do as well. However, Russia uses the Western tactic for absolutely different purposes. “Russian political technologists use the Western concepts and the tools of ’soft power,’ but they completely change the content. They use the interpretation of history and the issues related to human rights for their propaganda purposes. It is important to understand that, and this is why this research was carried out,” Maliukevicius said to Litovskiy Kuryer.

He stated that this policy is beneficial to Russia and that it uses it to strengthen its interests in the post-Soviet zone. In his opinion, even at the highest governmental level Russia does not deny that the countries of the former USSR are in the zone of its interests.

In Maliukevicius’s view, Russia has various tools to influence the situation. “Starting with military force and ending with so-called ‘humanitarian intervention’,” the political scientist said. However, he said that there is something that does not pose any danger to Lithuania yet, but Lithuanian politicians should pay their attention to that. “We need to solve the problems of the Russian minority, so that the Russian Embassy or Russian politicians do not need to interfere. If we let matters drift, it will create a situation that Russian political technologists could use for their purposes,” Maliukevicius said.

Moreover, he noted that besides using the Russian-speaking minority for its humanitarian policy, Russia even more actively uses the Polish minority living in Lithuania.

“We Need To Solve the Problems of the Russians”
When asked by the paper how Russia can influence the situation in Lithuania by using the Russian minority if the minority is small, does not feel discriminated by the Lithuanian authorities, and is relatively well-integrated, Maliukevicius said that “the situation of the Russian-speaking Lithuanian citizens is dual.”

“I am not saying that all is well. I think that the Russian-speaking people have many problems. The situation with the language and the decreasing number of students in the Russian-language schools is tragic. But the most important thing is not to make it a double tragedy, not to allow political technologists to use these problems to advance their own interests and to play propaganda games,” the expert said.

He noted to Litovskiy Kuryer that Lithuanian politicians, public organizations, and experts should think about that. The political scientist also mentioned the problem of Visaginas and the active work of the Russian Embassy with the population of this town. “There is virtually no information in the Lithuanian media and the press on this problem. This is why Lithuania should work in this direction so that there is no niche for Russia’s manipulations,” Maliukevicius said.

When asked by the paper about information warfare, the political scientist said that during the discussions conducted in the framework of the research, he and his colleagues from Latvia, and especially from Estonia, established that there was a shift in Russia’s information policy as far as the rights of the Russian-speaking people and the interpretation of history are concerned. He said that this happened more or less in 2004-2005.

“This was caused by the upcoming anniversary of victory in the Second World War, but it was a very clear step taken by political technologists to shift the topics discussed by the Russian-speaking people in public domain to historic issues. We can see that from the documentaries that have been created on the topic and the books that have been published. Such things give an impulse to display intense emotions in various communities that have various attitudes. Such things never lead to anything good, but the politicians from both sides in the conflict use such situations to generate support for themselves. This is a very strong argument for the Kremlin politicians to work on this topic, because by doing so they create an image of Russia being surrounded with pseudo enemies. And here in Lithuania the situation is used for the same purposes. And the worst thing is – and we talked about this issue during the discussion – that we do not know whether this tendency will change. The terrible thing is that the situation could be getting even worse because of a very simple reason – we already have a generation raised on this media warfare on both sides, this generation has its own beliefs. This new generation will be even more actively participating in such discussions. And if an escalation of this historic topic continues, we could have a repeat of the Bronze Soldier situation. Even in Lithuania,” the political scientist said to Litovskiy Kuryer.

In conclusion he noted that the measures to prevent such a scenario could be very simple. “The problem of the Russian compatriots in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia could be solved in a very simple way – we should tell ourselves that these are not Russian compatriots. These are our compatriots. These are our citizens with their own needs and problems. If we perceive this part of our society this way, then all potential dangers and history games will be neutralized and propaganda campaigns will fail,” the political scientist said to Litovskiy Kuryer.