DISINFO: The Rail Baltic project is frozen, it will be destroyed in a war
SUMMARY
The construction of the Rail Baltic railway was postponed for another two years because the Baltics don’t have enough money. It seems like the Rail Baltic project has permanently “frozen”. There is no point in building infrastructure to the “front line” because it would be destroyed in the first hours of a large scale war.
RESPONSE
Rail Baltic is currently undergoing a design phase. In March 2019, a contract was signed to design a section of the Rail Baltic railway in Estonia. This was the first design contract signed for the main line of Rail Baltica. In April 2019, a similar contract was signed for a section in Lithuania, and in July, a design works contract was signed in Latvia. By September 2019, design works and site investigations had started on 411 km of the railroad. Pro-Kremlin media often use the narrative of a "great war that will destroy everything, so there is no point in doing anything". This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative based on groundless speculation. Sometimes it's used in combination with the narrative that "Russia is not a threat" (and dismissing the annexation of Crimea). Other times, the narrative that "Russia is not a threat" is paired with the narrative where Russia destroys its adversaries with a nuclear bomb.