According to SAB "Over the past few years, Moscow’s perception of the West as an existential threat to the ruling regime has intensified. Russia believes it has already entered a direct confrontation with the West: the struggle takes place not only in Ukraine, but also globally and ideologically... To implement its influence and plans, Russia continues to use and constantly adapt existing ones, as well as create new hybrid instruments."
Russia is increasingly using "legal mechanisms in the international arena with the aim to discredit Latvia on an international level and ensure long-term international pressure on Latvia to change its policy towards Russia and the Russian-speaking population," says SAB, and dedicates a brief chapter of its report to the phenomenon, predicting that Russia might try to drag Latvia and other countries through international courts over supposed discrimination against Russian speakers.
In SAB’s assessment Russia will continue to pose a significant military threat to European countries and NATO – which is unlikely to be much of a surprise to anyone given the aggressor state's track record over decades.
"SAB’s information shows that Russia’s perception of Latvia is becoming increasingly similar to the one Russia had of Ukraine before the war. While Russia does not pose a direct military threat to Latvia at the moment, a number of signs indicate potential long-term plans," SAB warned.
"Although not a priority for Russia, the increasingly negative view of Latvia may result in more aggressive Russian decisions in the long term. Most Russian narratives portray Latvia as a russophobic country that oppresses the Russian-speaking part of the population. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs periodically publishes voluminous reports on human rights violations and the situation in Western countries, quite often dedicating one of the biggest parts of the report to Latvia. Russian narratives also depict Latvia as a Nazi state, a puppet of the Great Britain and the United States, and a failed state. Before the war, Moscow was spreading similar narratives regarding Ukraine. Now, it continues to portray all three Baltic countries in a similar way."
“Last year, when analysing the state of security situation in the region, we assessed that under the right conditions Russian military threat to NATO could substantially increase over a five-year period. Recently, various experts have been predicting it over the next two to three years. The situation has changed, the threat has increased, but currently, we are not limiting it to a certain time frame as the situation is influenced by various factors and their combination. The threat level stemming from Russia will remain high, therefore, we must work purposefully to reduce it. We must also be prepared for the fact that Russia will try to exert its influence on the upcoming parliamentary elections in Latvia this fall,” noted Egils Zviedris, director of SAB, commenting on the annual report.
He also offered some refreshingly common-sense advice for the general population in election year:
"I encourage everyone, when consuming information, to be aware that we are under pressure from information influence activities. Our adversaries would certainly like to accomplish a large part of the work through the hands of Latvian people, without them even realizing it. Although invisible, this influence is very strong. It polarizes society and weakens national security. I would urge everyone to resist it in any possible way – do not give into emotions and fall for the traps set out in the information domain. It is always a good idea to take a deep breath before sharing seemingly scandalous information or drawing any conclusions about it, to not give our adversaries a reason to rejoice at the success of their influence operations which are aimed at undermining Latvian security and independence."
The classified part of the annual report will be reviewed by the Cabinet of Ministers and the National Security Commission of the Parliament of Latvia. The full text of the unclassified report is available here.
In another interesting aside, and running counter to commonplace speculation about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will supposedly make the world a much better place, SAB points out some of its darker applications, saying: "We also observed an increasing use of artificial intelligence in Russian information operations to generate content that is more suitable for target audiences and easier to understand. AI can also reduce the cost of creating content in other languages and distributing it outside traditional Russian target groups."
The Constitution Protection Bureau is one of three state security services, the other being the State Security Service (VDD) and the Defense Intelligence and Security Service (MIDD). The main tasks of SAB include intelligence, counter-intelligence and protection of official secrets. SAB also ensures protection of NATO and EU classified information in public institutions engaged in work with such information.