Lithuania’s intelligence agencies fear Russia will interfere in its forthcoming elections, including one in May to find a successor to the staunchly anti-Kremlin president, Dalia Grybauskaite. The Baltic state, ruled from Moscow for much of the 20th century but now a member of both the European Union and NATO, was rattled by Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and hosts a German-led multinational battalion to deter any Russian invasion. It holds presidential, municipal and European Parliament elections this year and a parliamentary election in 2020. “Russian intelligence will step up its activity during the 2019-2020 election cycle,” the agencies wrote in a joint annual assessment published Tuesday. “It is possible that Russia will seek to sway the course of the elections by information and cyber means.” Moscow could “disseminate propaganda and disinformation in Lithuanian social media,” it said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the suggestion was “absolute nonsense,” adding: “Russia does not interfere in elections in other countries.”
Russia is also suspected of carrying out a number of notable cyberattacks, including a concerted assault on the information systems of another Baltic state, Estonia, in 2007, and an attack that knocked out power stations in Ukraine in 2016. Russia denies being behind any cyberattack.
Full Article: Lithuania Fears Russia Will Attempt to Sway Its Elections.