They used to work together in one way or another. Since the collapse of "Harmony" – once the leading party for Latvia's Russian-speaking voters – four political groups are now competing for what's left of its supporters in the upcoming parliamentary elections in October. One is the faded old brand trying to reinvent itself, and the former allies who split off to build careers of their own.
In May, the Baltics experienced a perfect storm of events capable of fuelling public anxiety. There were repeated emergency alerts about Ukrainian drones entering airspace, some of them hitting an empty oil depot in Latvian town close to the Russian border and one being shot down by NATO air force in Estonia. Vilnius, including the government, was ordered to go to shelters. Latvia experienced power outages.
By banning Kremlin's TV and online propaganda in the Baltics, the access to such resources has become more challenging only for those whose primary source used to be television. Now social media platforms have taken up that space, among which "Telegram" stands out because it does not share data with governments and does not moderate disinformation and lies.