CROATIA Introduction Croatia is a free democracy, though it continues to suffer from corruption (Freedom House, 2019). The media is trying to adapt to digitalization and the country is home to a vibrant mix of online websites. Croatia suffers from disinformation shared via social media, particularly on Facebook, and on news websites. A negative trend towards restricting media freedom started in 2016 after a snap parliamentary election installed a new government of social conservatives, voting out the social democrats (Peruško, 2020). In early January of 2020 the country held presidential elections, which incumbent President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović lost to her opponent Zoran Milanović. She blamed her defeat on fake news and sexism, claiming the media landscape is “complete chaos” (Gotev, 2020). The next parliamentary elections were held on 5th July 2020, and the ruling Croatian Democratic Union consolidated their power by winning 66 of the 151-seat parliament (Chadwick, 2020). According to the 2020 Reuters Digital News Report, Croatia has an internet penetration rate of 92%, and citizens access their news online via computers (65%) and smartphones (78%). Social media networks are increasingly popular for receiving news, including Facebook (55%), YouTube (28%), WhatsApp (16%) and Viber (14%). However, Croatians have very little trust (29%) in the veracity of news on social media (Peruško, 2020), and disinformation is key to this lack of trust. According to a Eurobarometer survey in March 2018, 47% of Croatians encounter fake news every day and 29% encounter fake news at least once a week (Veljković, 2019). As part of the wider European action plan against disinformation, initiated by the European Commission, the government plans to create a national contact point and real-time alert system that will work with other EU member states to counter online disinformation (Veljković, 2019), however, plans to counter disinformation have been talked about for a long time without much results. Finally, Russian influence in Croatia remains an ongoing concern in the country (Karasik, 2019, 2020). In relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, in the early spring the country’s official statistics were promising but they started rising again over the summer. Prime Minister Andrej Plenković stated that in comparison to other countries, there was no great hardship in Croatia, though there are on-going concerns about the lack of tourism in the summer of 2020 that could seriously harm the Croatian economy (Dellanna, 2020). Nevertheless, a report by Balkan Insights revealed that Croatia had some of the most serious cases of digital rights abuse during the pandemic. A total of thirty-one cases were recorded from January to May, including an incident where a list of infected patients was shared through messaging apps, violating the patients’ privacy rights (Ristic, 2020). An Overview of Cyber Troop Activity Croatia Organizational Form The government has been criticized for trying to influence the media landscape by manipulating the distribution of EU social funds for the non-profit media sector. The new conservative government heavily cut the funding and has yet to deliver the media strategy that it has been promising (Peruško, 2020). Moreover, the Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts approved a grant of 98,999 HRK (~$14,800) from the EU funds to the internet portal Dnevno.hr, which is known to be a leading producer of disinformation in Croatia (Vidov, 2019). Dnevno is a far-right news provider with web outlets in Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia Herzegovina (Milat, 2019). Recently, another website known to spread disinformation and 104