Russian bear with balalaika playing battle hymns for the Baltics: The Russian compatriot policy in the Baltics

The compatriot concept is what Russia created and transformed into the compatriot policy in the 1990s. Russia has benefitted from the compatriots abroad as an efficient tool for Russian foreign policy making. Russia has invested in soft power instruments like state organizations since 2003 to influence the Russians and Russian speaking people in the post-Soviet countries, especially in the Baltics. Russia’s aggressions in Georgia and Ukraine resulted in a transformation of its soft power policies into a hybrid warfare in the Baltics. This study aims to explain the factors behind this transformation using case study analysis as a method.