This was first sent to hundreds of subscribes to my newsletter. Subscribe yourself for extra stuff from my radio shows, documentaries and the stories I’m working on.

*

Deep in a grey stone government building in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, a small group of officials stare at a digital map on the wall. The map pings with notifications of live incidents unfolding across the country, like fires, possible attacks, and Russian drones breaching Lithuanian airspace.

But it doesn’t just track physical threats, because in recent years Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre has established itself as one of the world’s most sophisticated and successful disinformation war rooms.

The excellent journalist Tom Watling visited for The Sunday Times and found a fascinating team battling a hybrid war.

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, a group who call themselves “disinformation elves” track and monitor content flowing across social platforms and news outlets. They’re looking out for Russian propaganda, designed to manipulate the public and stir tension across Europe.

Lithuania is on the front line of Russia’s information war. A recent debate in the country about repealing a ban on the stationing of nuclear weapons has been a particular target of Russia’s ire. Moscow threatened to wipe Lithuania from the map if it went ahead. The elves of the information war room noticed “unusual” petitions popping up online, and what looked like bot accounts attempting to influence the debate in Russia’s favour.

Every Thursday, the elves – somewhat disappointingly, they are just trained government officials who like to call themselves elves – send a report up the chain of command. The report places threats into several categories. Some disinformation campaigns require a rebuttal, and a warning to the Lithuanian people that a particular story or public debate is being influenced by a hostile state. The team also work with social media companies to help dismantle bot networks. Others are best left alone, Tom found, as a rebuttal would only amplify low-risk interference that hasn’t had much cut through.

In especially high-risk moments, the team give themselves just fifteen minutes to assess the risk of a narrative and get ahead of its spread. Any longer, and the damage can be done.

Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre has been so successful that other countries, including the United Kingdom, have been taking notes. Last month, Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced the UK would establish a National Centre for Information Defence.

But it’s not always so simple. Lithuania has a fairly straightforward problem. It is part of a jigsaw of Eastern European countries that are firmly in Russia’s sights. Establishing what is and isn’t part of hybrid warfare can be reasonably clear. The further you get from the direct threat, the murkier the problem becomes.

In the aftermath of the Southport attack, for example, a false story about the attacker’s identity was amplified by fake accounts and ignited a wave of anti-immigration protests that saw rioters target mosques and asylum hotels. It was eventually established that hostile states had been part of the effort to amplify the disinformation and sow division. But it was too late. The lie had stuck, and the damage was done.

To suggest the riots were solely due to foreign state-sponsored disinformation would also be an oversimplification. As a report from the defence and security think tank RUSI said, “they demonstrate a confluence of multiple issues including genuine grievances around migration, the evolution of the far right, and the problematic model of social media platforms.”

That said, RUSI also concluded that “an analysis of discourse around the riots and an understanding of how different threat actors operate demonstrates how the Kremlin was likely the most prevalent threat actor in this case.”

How to separate these competing forces – and how to avoid the new National Centre for Information Defence being accused of shutting down legitimate debate, especially as faith in government institutions wanes – could make or break our ability to fight and win this new phase of conflict.

I spoke to Tom Watling on my Times Radio show this weekend. Watch here as he takes us into the trenches of Lithuania’s disinformation war.