“Russian public diplomacy measures such as Sputnik have gained in importance over the course of the last few years, so we wanted to study its dominant narratives and how they shifted over time,” report co-author Sebastian Asberg told The Huffington Post via email. Russia has not yet commented on the allegations, but Swedish prime minister Stefan Löfven said Monday that he “cannot rule out” that Russia could try to influence Sweden’s elections, The Local reports. “The Baltic Sea region is of increasing geostrategic importance to Russia,” he said. “This is mainly due to the Baltic States’ membership in NATO, which would make it a likely scene of any potential conflict between Russia and NATO. Russia therefore wants to minimize NATO’s presence in the region.”

Source: Huffington Post January 11, 2017 17:45 UTC