Active Measures

In this episode of Active Measures, we focus on Lithuania—a frontline nation in the global struggle against authoritarian threats. As a refuge for exiled Belarusian and Russian activists, Lithuania has emerged as a beacon of democratic resilience, courageously confronting Vladimir Putin’s aggressive campaign against freedom and democracy.Marcus Kolga travels to Vilnius for an exclusive conversation with Mantas Adomenas, former Lithuanian Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs and current Secretary General of the Community of Democracies. A tireless advocate for democracy, Mantas has played a pivotal role in shaping Lithuania’s bold foreign policy, actively countering authoritarian influence from Russia and China, fiercely defending Ukraine, and championing democracy globally.His vocal support for Taiwan and unyielding criticism of authoritarian regimes has made him a direct target—resulting in a Kremlin ban in 2024. Today, as the leader of the Community of Democracies, Mantas Adomenas continues to unite nations committed to strengthening democratic institutions and confronting autocratic threats.Join us as we explore Lithuania’s inspiring fight for democracy and discuss strategies to protect freedom in an increasingly hostile world.

In this episode, your host, Marcus Kolga, travels to Tallinn Estonia where he meets with leading global expert on Russian influence and information operations, Molly McKew, to talk about the role of domestic US and Canadian influencers in those operations, their impact on our society, and about those nations that have successfully challenged them, like Estonia.

Episode 5 turns to Russia's information operations targeting Sweden. In this episode, our host, Marcus Kolga, travels to Estonia’s capital, Tallin, where he speaks with Swedish journalist and foreign policy expert Patrik Oksanen. The impact of Patrik's work has made him a significant target of Russian transnational oppression, which we will cover in an upcoming podcast episode. Together, Marcus and Patrik unpack Russian information operations in Sweden, including the Kremlin's amplification of a series of strange Quran burning incidents in 2023 and how they may have stifled Sweden's efforts to join NATO.

Welcome to the third episode of Disinfo Watch and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute's Active Measures podcast. Over the past two episodes, we've looked at the history of Moscow's information and influence operations.In this episode, our host Marcus Kolga travelled to Helsinki, Finland, where he met with former Canadian Brigadier General Jay Janzen, who is currently the director of the Communications Division at NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) located in Mons Belgium. Earlier in his career, Jay was deployed to Bosnia and twice to Afghanistan, where he was involved in communications operations. Jay was Director of Public Affairs for the Canadian Army, the chief of media operations at SHAPE and the Director General STRATCOM for the Canadian Armed Forces. Marcus and Jay sat down in an outdoor café next to Helsinki's Eastern harbour to chat about the threats that NATO and its members face in the information and cognitive domain, and how NATO and SHAPE are preparing to defend our collective cognitive sovereignty and fighting back against our enemies.

In this episode, we’ll look at Russia’s historic information and influence operations in the western world and specifically Canada, with renowned historian Professor Amy W. Knight who is described by the New York Times as the world’s foremost scholar on the KGB. We’re going to step back to 1945 when a soviet military intelligence cipher clerk, Igor Gouzenko stationed at the soviet embassy in Ottawa, left the embassy one night with a suitcase full of top secret files , those files contained detailed information about the Canadian and other western agents and assets who were helping the soviets advance their interests in the democratic world . The files Gouzenko handed over to Canadian authorities uncovered soviet assets inside government and academia and led to the conviction of 11 Canadians involved in soviet spying and influence operations. And it brought global attention to the threat of soviet influence operations in the western world. In 2005 Amy Knight published a book about Gouzenko and his defection entitled “How the Cold War Began: The Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet spies” . In this episode, your host – Marcus Kolga - speaks with Professor Knight from her home in New Jersey.