How (not) to write about the Baltic states

For advice about everything from structure to syntax, you can read the BISC style guide here

And here are seven “deadly sins”

Echoing Kremlin Tropes: Portraying Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as “Failed, Friendless, Fascist and Fragile”—depopulated, isolated, and ripe for collapse.

Flawed Framing: Using lazy or inaccurate regional labels that treat sovereign nations as a monolithic or outdated post-Soviet fringe.

Size Matters : Describing the Baltic countries as “tiny” or indefensible in a way that minimises their active, robust military capabilities.

Doomsday Scenarios (“Narva is Next”): Pushing baseless scaremongering that Narva in Estonia, Daugavpils in Latvia, or the Suwałki-Alytus corridor between Poland and Lithuania are on the verge of invasion; or that local Russian speakers are universally restless.

Geopolitical Illiteracy Treating the Baltic states as isolated, or special case. They are members of Nato and the EU.

Patronising: Treating the B3 as passive, helpless, naive victims. They have agency. They are decisive, resilient and vigilant

Stereotyping: Using lazy clichés such as “ex-Soviet” and “eastern Europe”