British troops are being taught how to fight Russian propaganda

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Lithuanian troops are teaching their British counterparts how to identify and fight Russia propaganda as part of an ongoing attempt to fight the country’s attempts to influence public opinion.

Officers from the Baltic state – which is said to be at the front line of Russia’s “soft power” war in Europe – shared their experiences with the 77th Brigade, a new British Army unit set up to deal with information warfare.

Russia has attempted to intervene in British politics and culture for a long time as part of its attempts to reassert its previous role as a world superpower.

As part of President Vladimir Putin’s campaign to renew Russia’s historic sphere of influence it has engaged in propaganda in countries like Lithuania while pursuing aggressive policies towards countries like Ukraine and Georgia.

The Kremlin is said to be subsiding cultural events like pop concerts in Lithuania and the head of Lithuanian military’s strategic communications department has accused Moscow of waging an information war in Europe.

Lieutenant-Colonel Juris Zguts told The Times the country “is overloaded by this [Russian] culture”.

He explained that “for our society it can feel like we actually are in Russia” with even Soviet-era war memorials as a reminder of the country’s influence according to the centre’s assessments.

A member of Colonel Zguts’ team, Captain Tomas Tauginas, said: “For a Russian population, they say things like: Nato is a strong and growing organisation, it is getting bigger every day and getting closer and closer to Russia and maybe one day it will attack”.

Russia has been accused of attempting to intervene with British domestic politics both openly and covertly.

GCHQ reportedly uncovered a plot by Russian hacker group Fancy Bears to disrupt the UK general election last year by targeting major broadcasters.

They had already successfully targeted French broadcaster TV5Monde while posing as Islamist terrorists in April 2015.

The group forced the channel’s programming off the air for 18 hours and replaced them with an image of the black Isis flag.

In another incident the group released the medical files of several British athletes, including cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins and long distance runner Mo Farah, in revenge for a scandal which saw Russian athletes partially banned from competing in the Olympics and completely banned from the Paralympics.

It comes as MI5 chief Andrew Parker warned that Russia is one of the main three security threats facing the UK today after Islamist extremism and sectarianism in Northern Ireland.

Mr Parker said Russia had been a “covert threat” for decades but now there were more methods for agents to use to destabilise the UK.

He said the Russian state was “increasingly [defining] itself by opposition to the West and seems to act accordingly”.

He explained: “You can see that on the ground with Russia's activities in Ukraine and Syria. But there is high-volume activity out of sight with the cyber threat.

“Russia has been a covert threat for decades. What's different these days is that there are more and more methods available.”