Recent Russian disinformation campaigns have shown how eager Putin is to propagate fake news to destabilize Western nations, secure the loyalty of his citizens, and potentially cause real military conflict to support his expansionist ambitions.

Few countries grasp the extent of Russian propaganda quite like Lithuania, an ex-Soviet nation of less than three million people who have been historically keen to resist, and who some believe are next in line for a potential Russian attack. ‘Light and truth all along, guide our steps forever’ says the Lithuanian national anthem, written in 1898.

As the reach of Russian disinformation increased in the past few years with the use of social media, ordinary Lithuanian citizens launched initiatives anchored in online communities, which quickly gained international traction and inspired others to follow. Among those, the Elves fight Russian propaganda trolls; members of Call Russia make phone calls to random Russian numbers to expose facts about the war in Ukraine; Tinder users switch their location to Moscow to create conversations with young Russian men.

These people are called Janina, Henrikas, Vytautė or Paulius. They might be a designer, an entrepreneur, a doctor or an actor. They are the face of Lithuanian civilian resistance in the era of an invisible enemy.

In 2022, the Centre national de l’audiovisuel (CNA) in Luxembourg and the Kaunas Photography Gallery in Lithuania joined forces to create a collaborative project that brought together a group of international artists to explore the notion of humanist photography. The Light & Truth project was mentored by Jim Goldberg during a residency in Lithuania and is published in a book called H – The Notion of Humanist Photography.