Indrė Makaraitytė is a journalist and the head of the Investigative Unit at the Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT), a Lithuanian public broadcaster.
Since its inception seven years ago, LRT’s Investigative Unit has established itself in the Lithuanian media as one of the strongest teams dealing with issues of systemic corruption and money laundering.
In addition to corruption issues, the LRT’s investigative journalists have been closely following the spread of propaganda and disinformation by the Kremlin regime in Lithuania. In autumn 2021, an investigative documentary on the activity of pro-Kremlin organisations in Lithuania and their influence on the riots outside the Parliament in August 2021 was released.
After Russia launched a full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022, LRT’s investigative team published a series of works revealing schemes to circumvent international sanctions against Russia, which encouraged changes in legislation. The team also exposed the Kremlin’s war propaganda network operating in Lithuania and neighbouring countries.
The LRT’s team of investigative journalists regularly collaborates on international projects with colleagues from other countries, and joint investigations have been shortlisted for international awards.
Indrė’s journalistic career started in 1997 as a reporter for the non-profit political weekly Atgimimas. A few years later, she became the editor of this newspaper.
In 2009, she was invited to host a weekly political current affairs programme on TV3, one of the largest commercial TV channels in Lithuania. She also hosted weekly and daily current affairs and in-depth interview shows while working for TV3 News Service. In 2015 she moved to a commercial TV channel, Info TV, where she hosted a daily “hard talk” programme for several years.
Since 2018 she has been working at LRT.
For more than 20 years, she has been a periodic contributor to op-eds on Lithuanian news portals. Recently, she has been particularly interested in topics that best reveal how the Kremlin regime is encroaching on our foundations of values and how it is using democracy itself to undermine those foundations.
Indrė is a graduate of the Institute of International and Political Science at Vilnius University, with a master’s degree in comparative politics.
