On 7 December 2023, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosted a meeting of the Baltic States and the Nordic countries (Nordic-Baltic Eight, NB8) on the topics of hybrid threats and strengthening resilience.
The NB8 countries shared their experience on the hybrid threats posed by Russia, Belarus and China at the national level, as well as on good practices in countering those threats. Besides strategic communication and cyber-related issues, the instrumentalisation of migration at the Finland–Russia and the Latvia–Lithuania–Belarus borders, as well as the threat posed to underwater critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, including in the context of the Balticconnector and Nordstream incidents, were discussed in detail. The countries present agreed on the need for closer coordination of the NB8 in the formats of the European Union and NATO, in particular, in the areas of disinformation, instrumentalisation of migration and strengthening the resilience of critical infrastructure.
The NB8 partners were made acquainted with the process of implementing the comprehensive national defence system in Latvia and how the measures contained therein strengthen Latvia’s resilience not only to different types of crises, but also to hybrid attacks. Finland and Sweden, which have a long-standing tradition of comprehensive defence, underlined the important role of civil society and the private sector in strengthening national security and resilience.
The next NB8 meeting dedicated to hybrid threats will take place next year in Sweden.