Let’s keep this generalisation to specific countries as this is not true for Baltic countries at all.
On the other side, every single person from there I've asked this specifically agreed their country is utterly corrupt mess, government after government, with tight coupling to big brother russia and mafia.
Its not unique to Baltics, I come from former V4 (poland, czechoslovakia, hungary) and we have some variant of that. Legacy of our fucked up russian tyrannical overlords from cold war is still running strong through very fabric of our societies (plus last 20 years of very effective FSB/GRU psy-op to sow hatred and division all around EU to weaken it, allowed by weak politicians like Merkel).
No, not really. For example, Estonia has been very well governed, including deep digitalisation of the economy, one of the best educational systems in the world and a complete and utter dislike/hate for all things Russian.
I gather you don't know what you are talking about but painting broad strokes so wrongly over 3 States who have been peacefully revolutionised in the past 30 years is offensive.
Isn't that (citizens thinking that) the same for most countries in the world?
Like I'm pretty sure many US citizens would say the same.
Or UK citizens.
Or German citizens.
Or <insert EU member state> citizens.
Or Singapore, Australia, china, japan.
etc.
through they might mean different thing when they say "corrupted mess".
And yes, all the mentioned states are corrupt to different degrees in different way. But I think finding citizens which would describe their country as "corrupt mess" isn't a problem (except if they are afraid about repercussions).