Journal on Baltic Security

The article examines the debates surrounding the status and role of Russian Émigrés. The full-scale invasion launched by Russia against Ukraine on 24 February 2022 came as a shock to many, including many segments of the Russian population, but the outflux of individuals opposing Putin has been present from the 2014. That said, the invasion transformed this trickle into an outright deluge whereby estimated 700,000 up to 1,200,000 people left Russia. The article gives the historical context, describing the policies towards diaspora communities of the countries in conflict during and after WWII. Then will engage with the dilemmas surrounding the decision either to admit Russian Émigrés or close the doors on them. Current and future policies towards Russian Émigrés are considered with recommendation to continue giving preference to individual approach in assessing each case.

Abstract: This article delves into an examination of video game streaming and its impact on shaping perceptions of the Russo-Ukrainian War as an influence operation. Specifically, it investigates the case of a 16-year-old boy known as GrishaPutin who streamed a multiplayer game of Hearts of Iron IV from the ChVK Wagner Centre. Drawing upon the framework of popular geopolitics and considering the narrative, ludic, and representational dimensions of these streams, this article situates the event within the broader social context in which the influence operation unfolds. Ultimately, this paper concludes that this event represents a novel and yet to be fully established practice in the realm of influence operations. It highlights how such information operations can evolve and adapt, with non-state actors occasionally driving innovation in ways that may not have been anticipated or planned by established state entities.

This article argues that both Russia and China will re-invigorate and expand their international espionage activities. Russia’s renewed vigour in engaging in aggressive espionage campaigns is due to the current setbacks that it is facing as a result of its ill-fated invasion of Ukraine. The sanction-induced prohibitions that limit access to state-of-the-art technologies will unleash renewed enthusiasm to obtain these latest technologies by covert means, be it HUMINT and/or cyberespionage. The future robustness of China’s aggressive espionage activities is projected to be fuelled by its systematic ‘de-coupling’ from those nations leading in science, engineering and technology, such as the United States, as well as the growing opposition to the use of developmental institutions such as the Confucius Institute and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as intelligence collection platforms. This article predicts that as Russia and China become ‘outsiders’, they will becoming increasingly aggressive in their espionage campaigns as pragmatic states acting in survival and developmental mindsets, and it elaborates on some of the more relevant forms of espionage employed.

Due to Russia’s continuous malicious actions against the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, as well as its ongoing war against Ukraine, most European countries have recently been forced to take a critical look at their national defense strategies and military capabilities. These reviews unearthed serious capability gaps, resulting in the emergence of so-called total defense strategies based on peacetime social resilience and war time resistance. This article focuses on resistance, arguing that the current manifestations of such a strategy do not ensure maximum results for the countries because their fundamental characteristics and principles were derived from cases that are limited in spatial and temporal scope. The article suggests that lessons must be also learned from recent experiences such as the Chechen resistance against Russia, Hezbollah’s fight against Israel, the Iraqi and Taliban insurgencies, the Syrian insurgency, and other similar cases. This article offers a starting point for identifying such critical lessons by analyzing the First Russo-Chechen War through a research model built on the common principles of Mao Zedong, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, and General Vo Nguyen Giap.

The article discusses visions of future warfare articulated in recent Russian military publications. There seems to be agreement among Russian scholars that future war will be triggered by Western attempts to promote Western political and economic interests while holding back Russia’s resurgence as a global power. The future war with the West is viewed as inevitable in one form or another, whether it is subversion and local wars or large-scale conventional war. While the danger of conventional war has declined, according to several scholars, the West is understood to have a wide range of non-kinetic means at its disposal that threaten Russia. In order to withstand future dangers, Russia has to be able to meet a large number of kinetic and non-kinetic threats at home and abroad.

Based on representative primary sources as well as authoritative academic and think tank analyses, this article aims to evaluate the role that Asia’s emerging superpower came to play in the Baltic trio’s security, with particular emphasis on its harder aspects and most recent developments, which marked a certain shift in the respective bilateral relationships. Structured according to the conventional levels of international relations analysis and rough chronological order, the qualitative study tracks the more or less direct impact of China for the comprehensive security of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania ranging from the systemic (global) to purely bilateral domains. The results show that China has indeed become a security factor to be reckoned with there, particularly since roughly 2017–2019 and primarily due to its deepening strategic partnership with Russia. Some of its security effects, however, are even older, more nuanced, yet still significant. Since roughly 2019, however, China’s security factor has increasingly acquired challenging and even threatening characteristics as is most clearly demonstrated by its relationship dynamics with Lithuania.

This article examines Russian military and defence intellectuals’ reflection on Russia’s military involvement in Syria. The research is based on a mix of open-source Russian military writings, mainly analytical texts in prominent Russian military journals. The aim of the study is to analyse Russian narrative of its military campaign in Syria. The first part begins by providing Russia’s internal discussions about probable military coalitions-building variants, risks, and operational-level decisions and objectives. The second part deals with Russian Armed Forces’ network-centric warfare capabilities and limitations. The article concludes by showing that in Syria Russia introduced a modified network-centric warfare as its main feature of new method of operations is the combination of advanced intelligence-command assets and old-fashioned munitions.

Interpreting Russian actions in the Near Abroad relies on the perception of Russian intent, but all too often states fail to analyse how Moscow interprets Western objectives. While defensive realist theorists argue that states tend to seek only enough power to survive within the system, the U.S. 2017 National Security Strategy argues Moscow is a revisionist state, seeking a return to great power status. Increasing tensions among the actors in the region gives rise to potential misperception of intent. This article analyses state motivations under a defensive realist paradigm and addresses how Russian actions may emerge from a defensive perspective. Using a defensive realist framework, this article elevates Russian insecurities and fear of Western influence in the Near Abroad as the primary motivator of state action.

The experience of the past decade shows a steadily increasing role of the armed forces in the implementation of Moscow’s strategic aspirations. The aim of this work is to present the geopolitical ambitions of Russia in competition with the West and the role of the armed forces in satisfying these ambitions, as well as to evaluate their modernisation.