The third ARM Project meeting took place in Riga from March 19-21, bringing together project partners to advance our research of information suppression. Hosted by Riga Stradins University, the meeting gave researchers the opportunity to discuss preliminary findings from the literature reviews and to exchange ideas and plan the next stages of the research.. There has already been great progress made in each of our country case studies: China, Russia, Rwanda, and Ethiopia, with first results expected in 2026.
The meeting also gave the opportunity to draw on key external perspectives of people working in the field of foreign influence operations. Elīna Lange Ionatamishvili, a researcher from the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (StratCom COE) in Riga, spoke on how to study information influence operations. She explored ways to analyse how certain regimes attempt to influence information. Ionatamishvili’s presentation drew upon the COE’s Nordic-Baltic Project, which has been examining Russia’s attempts to influence information in the Nordic and Baltic regions since 2016, and China since 2020. This project produces valuable insights into narrative trends, influence operations, and audience understanding.
Members of the project also met with Russian exile journalists based in Riga. Organized in cooperation with the Baltic Centre for Media Excellence, this offered project participants a unique opportunity to hear directly from journalists with firsthand experience of constantly working in the shadow of disinformation and facing increasing efforts to suppress dissenting voices.
Discussions also took place regarding collaboration plans within the FIMI (Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference) cluster and a potential special publication in the future.