The Government Office’s June and July reviews of the information environment reveal a recurring pattern across different topics and events. Russian propaganda does not necessarily build its stories out of thin air. Drones really have entered the airspace of NATO countries, there have been long queues at the Narva border crossing, and Estonia is increasing defence spending and building a military compound in Narva. The manipulation begins with the meaning assigned to these facts.
A technical failure or organisational problem becomes evidence of malicious intent by the Estonian authorities. A defensive measure becomes preparation for aggression. An isolated drone incident becomes an alleged system in which the Baltic states help Ukraine attack Russia. Because the starting point of the story is recognizable and often genuinely concerning, propaganda does not need to invent the entire event. It only has to fill the unknown part with a convenient explanation.
Drones became the central propaganda theme of the two months
At the Nordic-Baltic Eight, or NB8, summit held in Tallinn in June, one of the key topics was cooperation with Ukraine on the development of drone technology. Associated Press reported that Ukraine was ready to share its combat experience with the Nordic and Baltic countries and help develop cheaper solutions for countering drones that enter their airspace. President Alar Karis explained the need for such cooperation by pointing out that using fighter jets to shoot down drones is extremely expensive.
Russian media gave the same cooperation an entirely different meaning. Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s willingness to share Ukrainian expertise and help prevent drones from entering Baltic airspace in the future was interpreted as an attempt to make the Baltic states shoot down Ukrainian drones at their own expense. Possible training and technological cooperation were portrayed as an expansion of Ukraine’s military presence. Andrei Kolesnik, a member of the Russian State Duma Defence Committee, even warned that deploying Ukrainian drone specialists in the Baltic states would turn them into “legitimate targets” for Russian retaliation.
This interpretation reverses cause and effect in defensive cooperation. Ukraine offered assistance so that the Baltic states could counter drones entering their airspace more cheaply and effectively. In Russian propaganda, this became evidence that Ukraine was expanding its military activity towards the Russian border and deliberately turning the Baltic states into participants in the conflict.
In June and July, various drone incidents in different countries were also incorporated into this narrative. They were turned into one coherent story according to which Ukrainian drones regularly fly through Baltic airspace, while local governments either knowingly allow it or accept the risk posed to their own residents.
The words of Estonian politicians were used selectively to construct this narrative. Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told the Financial Times that Ukrainian drones entering the territory of allied countries were a problem, but that Estonia would not therefore call on Ukraine to stop attacking Russian military targets and energy infrastructure. Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti removed this important distinction and presented Tsahkna’s position as a claim that Estonia regarded Ukrainian drones falling on NATO territory as an “acceptable price” for strikes against Russia.
A discussion about two separate issues was thus transformed into a single moral accusation. One issue concerns Ukraine’s right to defend itself against Russia. The other concerns the security of NATO countries’ airspace. In the propaganda narrative, they were combined in a way that creates the impression that the Estonian government is prepared to sacrifice its own residents for Ukraine’s military objectives.
Real anxiety makes the story more credible
The effectiveness of the Russian narrative does not, however, come solely from distorting Tsahkna’s words. Public opinion monitoring commissioned by the Government Office showed in June that drones entering Estonian airspace had increased anxiety among 58 percent of residents. Although 67 percent of respondents said they knew what to do in the event of a drone threat, opinions of the authorities’ response were split exactly in half: 40 percent believed the authorities had handled the situation well, while the same proportion disagreed.
These figures do not prove the claims made by Russian propaganda, but they show the social environment into which those claims are inserted. When people perceive a threat and have not yet formed a firm opinion about how the state is responding, an influence actor can present its own explanation as the answer to an already existing question. What is not known for certain is not left unanswered, but filled with claims of concealment, collusion or loss of control.
At the end of July, Russia’s chargé d’affaires ad interim in Estonia, Kamran Abilov, used almost exactly this technique. He told RIA Novosti that the presence of Ukrainian drones in Estonian airspace was causing serious anxiety in society and damaging the investment climate. In a longer interview, Abilov added that the growth of panic could only be prevented by suppressing information about the issue. The first part of his statement corresponds with the concerns measured in the survey. The claim that the Estonian authorities are concealing the situation and thereby keeping panic under control is an explanation added by the Russian diplomat himself.
A barbecue advertisement became a call to kill Russians
One of the biggest “Russophobia” stories in July centred on an advertisement for Rannarootsi grilled meat. The ad showed two men with Ukrainian symbols grilling meat by the sea, with columns of smoke visible in the background. Above the image was the slogan: “A proper grill turns a bitter onion sweet.” The word sibul means “onion” in Estonian, but it has also been used as a derogatory term for Russians. The design and wording of the advertisement therefore attracted criticism in Estonia as well.
Russian media, however, did not treat the incident as an unsuccessful or ambiguous advertisement. The ambiguity was removed and the ad was assigned one specific message: Estonia was calling for Russians to be “fried” or “grilled”. Vesti.ru, the online publication of the Russian state television channel Rossiya 1, wrote that the advertisement called for “Russians to be fried on a grill”. REN TV went even further, claiming already in its headline that in the Baltic states it had effectively become acceptable to insult Russians and call for their murder.
Estonian politicians also helped amplify the political meaning attributed to the advertisement. Among those who criticised it were Jana Toom and Centre Party chairman Mihhail Kõlvart. Kõlvart wrote on Facebook that the advertisement had caused irritation and fear among both Russian- and Estonian-speaking residents, and asked whose interests were served by staging such provocations in a difficult security situation. This wording went beyond questions of taste or the professionalism of those who created the advertisement. The ad was placed within a framework of political confrontation and security, suggesting that broader interests might lie behind it.
Vesti.ru, the online publication of the Russian state television channel Rossiya 1, covered Kõlvart’s statement at length. His post fitted the narrative created by Russian media almost without any additional reinterpretation: the advertisement was no longer a questionable marketing decision by one company, but a social provocation that frightened Russian-speaking residents and increased ethnic tensions. The sharp reactions of Estonian politicians allowed Russian outlets to present their interpretation as locally confirmed rather than as an accusation imposed from outside.
Former Riga City Council member Ruslan Pankratov took the conclusion even further. According to him, this was not an accidental marketing mistake but the result of Estonia’s 35-year policy and the normalisation of everyday Russophobia. The advertisement, he claimed, was aimed at a “neo-Nazi audience”. In this way, a single company’s advertisement was turned into evidence supposedly describing Estonian society and the state as a whole.
The Rannarootsi case demonstrates why propaganda benefits from starting with material that already makes the target audience uncomfortable. The wording of the advertisement could be considered tasteless or poorly thought through even without accepting the Russian propaganda interpretation. The influence operation began at the point where possible ambiguity was turned into an explicit call to kill and one advertisement was used to declare violent Russophobia normal and state-approved throughout Estonia.
The Narva queue was turned into evidence of deliberate exclusion
The same mechanism was used in the case of queues at the Narva border crossing. Long waiting times, people spending the night on the street and queue places being sold for money are real problems that do not need to be invented. Russian media added intent to them: the Estonian authorities were allegedly deliberately making it more difficult for people to maintain ties with Russia and did not care about those waiting at the border.
In his interview with RIA Novosti, Abilov claimed that Estonia responded to criticism from people waiting for hours by advising them not to travel to Russia. The border crossing’s reduced opening hours and discussions about making the temporary working arrangements permanent were placed within the same framework. Security-related and organisational decisions became a story about the deliberate severing of ties.
This approach is effective because it does not deny people’s actual experience. Someone standing in a queue is not told that the queue does not exist. Instead, they are offered an explanation for why it exists and who is to blame. Rather than discussing the practical causes of the problem, hostile intent is attributed to the state. Frustration is thereby transformed into a political conclusion.
Developing defence capabilities confirms a predetermined conclusion
Narva played another role in June and July as well. The city was turned into a symbol of Estonia’s alleged militarisation. In July, RIA Novosti wrote about the planned military compound in Narva primarily as a facility being built next to the Russian border. Its location became the central meaning of the story, while the infrastructure project was grouped together with defensive trenches, long-range missiles, IRIS-T air defence systems and NATO units.
Estonian coverage described the same project in much more practical terms. According to an ERR overview, Narva City Council unanimously transferred the land required for the military compound to the state, the planned construction cost is approximately 16 million euros, and 150 Defence Forces personnel will be stationed there in the first phase. These facts do not make the project any less military in nature, but they provide context for its scale and the local decision-making process that disappears from the Russian narrative.
In propaganda logic, the purpose of a defence facility is not to increase Estonia’s defensive capabilities. Its existence confirms the predetermined conclusion that Estonia is preparing aggression on the Russian border. The same framework allows air defence systems, defensive trenches and allied units to be portrayed not as a response to Russia’s war and military pressure, but as the cause of that pressure.
The same military compound through two different frames. RIA Novosti emphasises the Russian border, while Estonian coverage focuses on the project’s scale, cost and the decision of the local city council:
The purpose of propaganda is not to provide one consistent worldview
According to the Government Office review, the volume of propaganda originating from Russia fell by 18 percent in June and 32 percent in July compared with May. The main narratives nevertheless remained unchanged. Estonia is portrayed as Russophobic and increasingly militarised, as an accomplice to Ukraine’s actions, as economically declining and as dependent on its allies. A single event can serve several of these claims at the same time.
There is therefore little point in looking for consistency in propaganda when it does not require consistency. In one story, Estonia can be a military staging ground threatening Russia, and in another, a poor small country that the United States will soon abandon. NATO can simultaneously be an aggressive force of encirclement and a weak, crumbling alliance. These claims are not intended to form a coherent, verifiable whole. Their purpose is to appeal to different fears: the expansion of war, betrayal by allies, economic insecurity and indifference on the part of the state.
The examples from June and July suggest that the most effective response is not simply to debunk a false claim. It is also necessary to explain the real event and fill the information gap before somebody else gives it a malicious meaning. When a drone enters Estonian airspace, a border queue grows longer or a defence facility is built, people need a clear explanation of what happened, why the decision was made and what the state will do next. Otherwise, the event itself remains real, but somebody else gets to write its meaning.
