US pressured Vilnius to drop support for Trump-critical conference, speaker says
A speaker says the US pressed Lithuanian, Canadian and EU diplomats to withdraw support for the Disinfo 2026 conference in Vilnius. Lithuania's Foreign Ministry has not confirmed that Washington's pressure drove its decision.
Speakers and organisers of the Disinfo 2026 conference on disinformation, held in Vilnius, Lithuania, say the United States pressured Lithuanian, Canadian and European Union diplomats to withdraw their backing for the event. The conference criticised US President Donald Trump and American interference in other countries' politics.
Adam Fivenson, one of the speakers and an associate at the Center for Security, Innovation and New Technology at American University in Washington, told LRT.lt that the pressure was first felt by speakers and organisers. A few days before the conference, several colleagues received emails from Michael Shellenberger, who runs a Substack and targets democracy defenders. Many saw this as an attempt at intimidation, since Shellenberger is considered close to the US State Department and to senior figures in the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.
Sponsors approached just before the event
Fivenson said that immediately before the conference, organisers began hearing that sponsors had been approached. He said it started with the EU's External Action Service, the bloc's de facto foreign ministry, and was followed by Canada and Lithuania.
Lithuania's Foreign Ministry did not confirm whether pressure from Washington prompted its decision to withdraw as a sponsor. In responses to the media, it stressed that it had no role in coordinating the conference's content and that some parts of the programme were inconsistent with the government's position and Lithuania's interests.
Organiser's assessment
Fivenson said the organisers had no intention of deepening the rift between Lithuania and the US, and called it unfortunate that Washington tried to use their event and panel as a wedge to undermine Lithuanian security. He noted that the US government holds diverse perspectives, and that Lithuania may keep good working relationships with some officials even as the State Department tries to disrupt matters over the panel. That, he said, gives him confidence that many people on both sides understand the stakes.
He described the State Department's sensitivity to the disinformation topic as "really strange", saying it was hard to understand why it would put security relationships at risk over a single discussion at a researchers' conference.
