"The indications of ongoing hybrid warfare are becoming stronger in Central Europe and Scandinavia too, and there's always the risk of it developing into actual warfare," Janis Sarts said Wednesday, as quoted by the Latvian Public Broadcasting English-language service.
The head of the NATO center pointed out that Sputnik's news coverage is one of "the signs of hybrid-warfare directed at us in Latvia."
He admitted that blocking the media in the country would be "counterproductive" and unable to stop people interested in alternative information sources since "there are simple solutions to bypass the block."
The Baltic states have been consistent in its information warfare against Russian media. In September 2015, the Estonian border agency denied entry to Rossiya Segodnya’s Multimedia Programs Director Marina Perekrуstova. In May, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite announced amendments to the country's media law to counter the information it deemed as Russian propaganda.
Sputnik is a news agency and radio network with multimedia news hubs in dozens of countries. Sputnik broadcasts through its websites, analog and digital radio, mobile apps and social media. Sputnik newswires run around the clock in English, Arabic, Spanish and Chinese.
The concept behind Sputnik is one that combines cutting-edge technology, high professionalism and close proximity to readers/listeners, which helps Sputnik develop and win over foreign audiences. Its motto "Telling the Untold" underpins the content Sputnik news services produces, with the aim of giving audiences an opportunity to compare alternative opinions.
A survey conducted by ICM Research exclusively for Sputnik and released in May 2015, showed that over half of those people polled in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Greece would like to get global news from sources other than mainstream Western media.
