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For “Hawk”, Russia declared war against Europe already seven years ago, when it first threatened Ukraine and invaded and annexed the Crimean peninsula. Since then, the war never really ended, at least not online. In Lithuania, Russia’s neighbour and the first Soviet republic to declare its independence from the bloc in 1990, an online army of volunteers take to the internet every day to fight the constant stream of Russian fake news and propaganda.
During the day, he works normal hours, at a normal job with a normal title. But after hours, and during pretty much any break he gets, this 50-something father-of-two turns into an online warrior, fighting Russian trolls under the nom-de-guerre Hawk from his phone or laptop in Vilnius.
“I monitor toxic pages and try to find fake news, mainly on Facebook, because that’s where most Russian trolls are,” he said in a telephone interview with FRANCE 24.
“Disinformation is really dangerous: It poisons brains, and tries to divide people – especially in free societies – lately with lies about the [Covid-19] vaccine and stuff like that.”
More recently, he has also been dedicating some of his time to sharing memes of the Russian army “to show that Russia isn’t as big, scary and terrible as it makes itself out to be.”
Defending Lithuania’s freedom
Hawk began his mission in the summer of 2014, just months after Russia suddenly invaded and annexed Crimea. “It was a wake-up call,” he remembers. “It was a real sign that everything is possible, in a bad sense,” he said, referring to Lithuania’s own proximity and painful history with Russia.
“Look, we were occupied [by the former USSR] for 50 years, and that memory is still pretty fresh over here. A lot of Lithuanian families have relatives that were killed during that time or sent to prison camps in Siberia. So…
Source : france24
