Lietuvių sąmokslas?

This article examines a crystal clear case-study of information warfare, media “weaponization” and influence strategy. The book “Lithuanian Conspiracy. How they killed the Soviet Union and what happened to those who tried to save it” originally published only in Italian, is a perfect example of “nonlinear conflict” (hybrid warfare), very useful for the media, geopolitical and political studies. Lithuanian conspiracy? This book is a falsification of what happened in 1991 in Lithuania. By muddling the facts, it put forward a conspiracy theory, arguing that it was Lithuanian activists, not Soviet soldiers, who started shooting at the crowd. It contains Soviet-era practices and tools of information warfare such as “de-contextualization” of facts or sheer invention of non-historical facts. It depicts an attractive Soviet period, presented as a nostalgic “Golden Age”, for the international audience, by creating a fake historical (for the Soviet Union) and contemporary reality (for independent Lithuania). The book manages to influence opinions and actions of individuals, governments, public by offering false information that discredits a chosen target legally, morally and ideologically. It is a real Kremlin’s policy technologists′ masterpiece, very useful to students and professors of political science, political communication, history and social psychology and should be analyzed as a striking example of how truth is transformed into a lie.