Riga hosts NATO’s first strategic communications exercise

Riga is hosting Synesis 2026, NATO’s first strategic communications exercise focused on the information environment, LSM reported. Teams from 13 countries are practising how to counter information warfare, reduce public panic and strengthen trust, including through the use of artificial intelligence.

The exercise uses a carefully prepared scenario involving crises and threats to model public reactions. Teams work with an AI-developed model of society resembling those of European countries, and test different ways to respond without real-world consequences.

Jānis Sārts, director of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, told Latvian Radio that one of Russia’s main aims in hybrid warfare is to influence European countries through information. The exercise scenario is based on how Russia might act in a country, he said.

Each team manages a fictional country in a digital environment where news and social media are simulated. Teams must coordinate responses by governments and relevant agencies to hostile disinformation. The simulated situation changes according to their decisions, allowing the exercise to model public reactions to events and attitudes towards them.

Sārts said teams were becoming better at the tasks, though their approaches differed according to their countries’ crisis plans. The exercise places particular emphasis on cooperation between civilian and military sectors.