No, we're not involved in Ukraine's counter-attacks on Russia, says Latvian Defence Ministry

The Latvian Ministry of Defence said on March 27th that Russia has launched what it described as "a large-scale, coordinated information operation" against the Baltic states about recent drone incidents – though it might just as easily have said "Russia is lying, as usual."

"The Ministry of Defence informs that Russia is currently implementing a large-scale, coordinated information operation against Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, claiming that the Baltic states are allowing their territory to be used for attacks against Russia by Ukraine," said the Ministry in a statement.

"Latvia, as well as Lithuania and Estonia, are not involved in the planning and implementation of Ukraine's counterattacks on Russia. The Baltic states support Ukraine by supplying military equipment, humanitarian aid and financial support, and also emphasize that Ukraine has a legitimate right to defend itself against a full-scale Russian invasion. With such statements, Russia demonstrates its weakness and tries to divert attention from the fact that it is unable to defend itself from successful Ukrainian counterattacks on Russian infrastructure on the Baltic Sea coast," said the statement.

The Ministry said that the goal of "Russian information operations against the Baltic states" is to discredit NATO, divide society, undermine trust in state institutions, and weaken support for Ukraine.

"Disinformation and social media bots are being used, targeting Russian-speaking audiences and using young people," it alleged.

The fact that in both Estonia and Latvia, the crashing of Ukrainian drones caused military assets to be scrambled and alerts to be issued, as well as the fact that it was some hours before it was ascertained that the drones were of Ukrainian origin does tend to undermine the Russian claims that these countries were part of the attack itself, as does the fact that Ukraine has subsequently been asked for an explanation.

It seems highly unlikely that Estonia would collaborate with Ukraine to crash a drone into one of its own power stations and then go public with the information or indeed that Latvia would help to launch a Ukrainian attack drone and then report the fact widely when it crashed into a random field causing no damage whatsoever beyond some scorched grass and a few broken branches. 

Plus, there's Russia's track record with regard to factual reporting, which could indeed be characterised in one way as being "a large-scale, coordinated information operation" or on the other hand as simply being a bunch of pathological liars and par for the course.

The Ministry of Defence's release was accompanied by screen shots of well-known Russian propaganda outlets (above) in case anyone wants to read such guff.