A fake report alleging tensions between Lithuania's government and US troops targeted the country's media this week, in what officials say is an intensifying effort to discredit NATO's presence in the country.
An email allegedly from the Lithuanian military spokesman was sent to the news websites Delfi.lt and Ve.lt on Wednesday, which included a false reference that it was being disseminated via the news agency BNS.
Read more: Fake news target Lithuania's statehood, portray as hostile state – report
The two newsrooms immediately contacted the Strategic Communications Department of the Lithuanian Armed Forces to check the accuracy of the report, according to Laimis Bratikas from the military's Strategic Communications Department,
“The target of this piece of fake news was NATO and the solidarity of allies,” Bratikas told BNS.
The fake report claimed that the Lithuanian Defence Ministry was concerned that the US allegedly said the Baltic states failed to meet their commitments to NATO.
The commander of United States Army Europe was allegedly asked to apologise, otherwise Lithuania would ask Washington to withdraw American troops from the country.
The fake report quoted both Bratikas and Lithuania’s Defence Minister Raimundas Karoblis.
“A report, which looked like it came from the press centre of BNS, was sent to the general inbox of our editorial office,” Rasa Lukaitytė-Vnarauskienė, the chief editor of Delfi.lt, told BNS. “At first glance, it appeared identical to the usual reports from the BNS press centre.”
“My colleagues had doubts when they saw the report, as it is rather unusual for such information to be disseminated via the BNS press centre,” she said, adding that the colleagues decided to check the report.
Vaidotas Beniušis, the chief editor of BNS, confirmed that the BNS press centre did not circulate the report. “The appearance of the email shows, however, that the senders tried to give such an impression,” he said.
Cyber and disinformation attacks against Lithuania are growing in scale, becoming bolder and more sophisticated, the National Cyber Security Centre at the Ministry of Defence said in its recent report.
Last year, the Strategic Communications Department reported nearly 2,900 information attacks to spread fake news, up 15 percent from the year before.
In another incident last month, a falsified email from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was sent to institutions in Lithuania and Brussels, falsely claiming that NATO troops would be withdrawn from the country.
Defence Minister Karoblis previously said that NATO troops were often targeted by fake news reports, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, and called for strengthening cooperation between the Alliance and the EU, particularly in building up the public's resilience to information attacks.
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