A forged news report accusing U.S. soldiers in Lithuania of trying to steal a car was part of an elaborate campaign to turn NATO allies against each other, officials in the Baltic nation said.
About 500 U.S. troops are in Lithuania as part of an effort to bolster NATO’s eastern borders against Russia. Their presence has rankled antagonists, officials in Vilnius said.
“NATO and the presence of allied troops in Lithuania continues to be the target of disinformation and cyberattacks by NATO adversaries and their troll army that seek to dilute and diminish Lithuanian society’s support for NATO and sow mistrust of Lithuania’s allies,” the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the Washington Examiner.
The officials implicitly blamed Russia for the fresh attack, which came Thursday in the form of a forgery that appeared to be written by a prominent Lithuanian reporter. The fake story said American soldiers in Vilnius tried to steal a BMW car.
The fake story is part of a series of incidents apparently intended to turn public opinion against American forces deployed in the country, according to Lithuanian assessments.
“The latest cyber-disinformation attack targeting U.S. soldiers is just one such case,” the foreign ministry said in an unsigned response.
The forged news story was replete with details to make it seem legitimate, ministry officials said. The report claimed that two Americans “threatened a driver with a knife, struck him in the face, and tried to seize him,” an allegation carried in various local media outlets. The now deleted story featured an invented quote from a local police official who blamed U.S. soldiers.
The fake car theft story follows an October “complex cyber-information attack” that stoked tensions within NATO by claiming that U.S. military assets in Turkey would move to Lithuania.
“Lithuania is the subject of at least 50,000 cyber attacks annually,” the statement Friday said.
The disinformation operations are widely regarded as the acts of Russian cyberattackers. “It’s messing principally with the U.S. and with Turkey, and there’s obviously one candidate for that particular role,” Atlantic Council’s John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told the Washington Examiner after the October incident.
A top Russian general complained this month about the deployment of U.S. forces to Eastern Europe, alleging that NATO is in “preparation for engaging its forces in a large-scale military conflict.”
The small troop contingent, and the NATO alliance it represents, is “the cornerstone of Lithuania’s national security,” the foreign ministry said in Friday’s statement.
The statement credited local initiatives, such as the organization of “Lithuanian elves” who try to counter the Russian online trolls, with helping to limit the influence of the disinformation campaigns.
“Education programs, etc., are aimed at identifying and deconstructing disinformation, strengthening media literacy, and societal resilience,” the foreign ministry said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry did not respond to questions from the Washington Examiner asking if Moscow wrote the fake news story.
