there is a lot, it is significant and i am very pleased to see it because our people help from the bottom of their hearts and they actually understand very well the difficult and tragic situation in which the ukrainian people now find themselves. as far as i know, you gave shelter to many ukrainians who fled the war . ukrainian refugees are currently in latvia, all figures are very different, exactly more than 20 thousand, some even say that 28 thousand, our structures say that we can accept 40 thousand citizens of ukraine in latvia, but according to the schengen according to the rules, citizens of ukraine with a valid foreign passport can enter the territory of the

schengen zone for three months or 90 days and live there even without registration. however, some of them do register. while they are on the territory of latvia although they can also legally stay on the territory of latvia for three months with valid documents even without registration, i cannot say the exact number, but it is definitely more than 20 thousand more 14,000 received work permits in latvia.

ukrainian refugees live mostly in host families or in some specially prepared premises . for example, for this they donate various premises of schools and other buildings of social infrastructure, they are also used for housing refugees or temporarily displaced persons latvia was one of the first countries that provided us with military aid, you gave us your own anti-aircraft systems stinger which helped a lot during the defense of kyiv do you still

continue to provide us with military aid i can answer yes but without any details although military aid military equipment continues to come to ukraine so my answer is yes thank you very much next question latvia lithuania estonia and slovakia jointly call for the confiscation of russian assets that have been frozen in the european union and then give them to the reconstruction of ukraine after the russian invasion, you are going to present this initiative in younging to the european union. do you think it will have sufficient support in the eu? this question

also concerns the national legislation in each country, how they will work with it, but logic suggests that these criminal acts were committed by the aggressor country. it is obvious, at least for us. it is obvious that the seized money must be used for reconstruction. countries as well as compensation for the damages caused by these criminal acts, there is no need to doubt this. of course, the biggest difficulty lies in the legal details of different countries, how they will do this according to their legislation, how do they organize all this, maybe for this we will even need to make certain changes in the legislation, but for us it is absolutely clear , we understand it clearly for you, but i asked your opinion about other countries for them, is it generally

clear for them in europe, i would say that to a certain extent, i did not analyze what is happening in each individual country, that is, their public opinion, but what opinion is held in political circles . i do not have such information. but such a step is very easy to justify because it is clearly not provoked by anything criminal action and it is obvious that someone must pay for the destruction of the infrastructure for the destruction that was brought to ukraine, it is absolutely clear that this is done by criminals, they are all well- known, known to every specific person , all the evidence against them has been collected, so there is no doubt that what needs to be done of course that there may be

some political obstacles or legal details regarding how to formalize all this, but i am convinced that we should continue in the same spirit, there are simply no other options. so it is true that sanctions against russia, let's talk a little about them. it is well known that latvia is constantly calling for the strengthening of sanctions. how do you assess the probability that the european union will introduce an embargo on russian oil and gas, especially on oil on oil, this is very important. i think that we will come to this together, this is not an easy task because for many years we were dependent on russian sources, in fact all of europe to a large extent, but now completely

new circumstances have appeared and this is a completely different situation, which means that we must change our policy. i really believe that we need a little time but we can change the supply chains and if this war continues and we will do it i believe we can do it we will do it for russia oil is a very important source of income it is clear that now every such source of income is used by the military industry some say they are using for their own military concessions so we just have to take away this funding of the war machine thus minimizing their ability to move forward so oil is in that a very important factor is that it is sometimes

easier for european countries to give up russian oil supplies than for others, this is because of their greater dependence on russian supplies. smaller countries probably want and need less, it is easier for them to change supply channels from other sources, larger countries have more reserves, so they need more imports. it can also be political inertia and it all follows inertia the source has always been in one place but we suddenly need to change it it is very difficult but i am almost sure that we will come to this step by step and

we will find a solution it is not easy for anyone it is not easy for us either because you just look at the prices of energy resources, they are increasing because of that of course we have to do something about it, it is obvious that in due time all this will be resolved but it will not be soon and it will be a shock for the economy of any country, so the sixth package will be approved soon yes it will be approved for sure, but i can't say when exactly, however, there is progress. i feel optimistic that a decision will be made. and i also have optimistic hopes. at least i think so. i hope and hope that it will be approved soon. okay , deputy prime minister of latvia artis pabriks - he said that he, and then the quote, is afraid of the weakness of the west because of the way the west treats russia and putin, why does such weakness exist i have anna we

don't know a lot usually politicians get into a difficult situation when there are many different options on the table but some of them you don't know and you can't choose correctly and then various challenges arise yes some politicians tend to look for easy ways out of such situations they have to make difficult decisions or not make difficult decisions the whole history of mankind is full of such examples when people looked for easy ways but in the end we found ourselves in a terrible situation, let's look at the example of the second world war and what happened before the second world war. how did the peacemakers of adolf hitler and the nazi regime try so long ago

it is quite obvious that it is very difficult for normal western diplomacy to make the right decision in a rather complicated situation, this task is not easy, it is not easy, mistakes were also made before, mistakes can also be made now, but this is a warning and it is very important that such a warning is made by politicians and political analysts, they tell us not to do of such mistakes, this way out can only seem easy. but if we make a mistake here, in the end, we can end up in a much worse situation, so this question remains open it is a constant struggle thank you for match worldration say when you try to adapt

your politics under autocratic regimes on it is possible that you will get a very bad result so this is a warning in the right place and at the right time and your deputy prime minister artispublic also said under during the conference in tallinn that he does not agree with emmanuel macron and you just said that, as well as with other western politicians who say that we should not humiliate russia, that we should allow putin to avoid responsibility so that he could save his face and so on, mr. public also said that putin should learn to lose . do you think he will learn to lose while sitting in the kremlin? this is a very difficult question, that is,

from what i can see during his public appearances, putin is trying to pretend that everything is going well. plan, although we know that nothing is going according to his plan, he is trying to look brave, but we can call it differently saving the image or the ability to lose, but the most important thing is to end the war and help ukraine restore its territorial integrity, and then you can say whatever you want, that someone has lost an image or that someone has learned to lose, but we all must remember one important thing that ukraine must restore its territorial integrity, restore control over its territory, so that this war

will stop at a certain period, so that people no longer suffered and did not die precisely about these important things, we must remember what we will call it. whether we will describe it is probably already secondary, but these things themselves are important, so the really important thing is that that we will win this war and restore our integrity with your help, and i thank you for it. so, on april 26, you visited bucha and borodyanka. you brought humanitarian aid there and discussed the situation with the mayors of bucha, gostomelen, borodyanka , gostomel and borodyanka. these are the cities that suffered the most under the time of the attack on kyiv was the most impressive. if we talk about the negative, it is when you

see all the destruction of civilian infrastructure and houses. i was mostly in irpen, but also in borodyanka, just try to imagine the human suffering, for example, irpin, you can easily imagine young people, families buying apartments in a new building in a beautiful area, thinking about having children, opening their own business, they just want to live a normal life in the suburbs of kyiv, but suddenly, one day, some criminals, some bad people come there on tanks with artillery and completely destroy your life your house you will be lucky if you can just escape from these battlefields alive with your families and

children this is a huge tragedy huge human a tragedy, no one could have predicted that this could happen, but it happened because one obsessed authoritarian leader thought that the ukrainian people had no right to exist and that it was not a people at all, and so on, he said some crazy things about ukraine and the ukrainian people and it is these people who will suffer as a result of this criminal act of an absolutely egregious act, so this is very touching on a human level, it is as if they themselves felt human suffering, but when i walked the streets of the city, i also had a positive the impression is that the local authorities together with the residents have already

done a huge job of cleaning up these cities. they cleaned up the streets. there is almost nothing left on them. the streets are clean. they took away all the garbage from the damaged houses. small businesses are trying to get back to work. you can clearly see how a person is trying to collect all the necessary things and open their own . shop or start selling something again or open your own business again and provide services and a positive impression from ukrainian people who are returning to normal life despite the fact that the war continues. they are trying. they manage to return to a kind of normal life in their cities. thank you very much. on april 24 of this

year, latvia, together with estonia, was the first in the world to recognize russian atrocities in ukraine as genocide. i understand why it is important for us. but why is it so important for the people of latvia ? we see in this trend a bad trend these war crimes have not appeared right now and exactly in ukraine ukraine ah there were before in ukraine war crimes were committed for the sole reason that they were not stopped earlier that the war criminals did not answer for this in any way before , neither in georgia nor in fact in 2014 after the struggle in donbas and in crimea."

part of the race, it can spread everywhere, if you, its criminals, do not see the consequences, then all this will go on and continue to grow, and we must stop it with all our might. there is simply no other way out. in fact, i believe that the criminals are those who are involved in the committed war crimes, i believe. i am even convinced that they will appear before the court and be punished it will be a little more difficult for the political leaders, those who ordered to do it with them will be a little more difficult , this does not mean that we should surrender. but why

then some countries? countries, their governments, their peoples have not experienced such level of crimes, war crimes since the second world war, new generations of people live there who replaced those who saw what the nazi regime did to cities and people with the civilian population of society, therefore it is difficult to switch and begin to understand that now we are seeing very similar things, it takes time to understand that this is happening again, war

crimes are shared, yes, there were wars of such a scale in yugoslavia, but war crimes in yugoslavia were tried at tribunals, so similar tribunals we must hold it here again and make those criminals answer those people who committed these war crimes here in ukraine, there is another way, by the way, is there any threat from russia now in latvia? no, we think not that it is minimal, because we are members of the nato alliance, we are constantly working on strengthening our military readiness on the territory of latvia , nato troops are also stationed, they regularly conduct military exercises, so if we take into account these resources, then the

start of some kind of military action against a nato member or suicide, i want to become electrolines but is nato sufficiently present in latvia? i think that this presence corresponds to the current situation, if the situation is threatening then we can be quite sure that there will be a reaction and the number of military personnel will increase, and my last question at the international conference of philanthropists who support ukraine, which was held in warsaw on may 5, latvia announced that it will take part in the reconstruction of ukraine after the war, in particular, they will rebuild schools, kindergartens and hospitals, you came to us with your architects

, it is quite possible, it is also possible but now we are waiting for a big reconstruction plan which is currently being agreed and finalized by the ukrainian government , we just need to see the scale and parameters of this plan and then we will be able to see the areas where we can help, but the answer to this question is that we will definitely participate in the reconstruction of ukraine, we will invest our own resources ukraine i generally think that all countries should participate in this campaign, you just need to understand what will it look like? where geographically, in which region or city will we be able to join? what will we be able to do? what

are our special needs? we are carefully studying and thinking about what we can do. how many resources do we need to collect for this? thank you very much, mr. ambassador, for joining me today and now you have the opportunity to address the ukrainian people. yes, thank you very much. thank you very much . the ambassador of the republic of latvia to ukraine and alga svalyava spoke on skype about what they are doing in latvia, how they are helping us to fight the invader and how they will help rebuild ukraine. well, my name is yuriy fizer see you on february 24, the date that changed us, the date that changed the world and now. what interests us the most is our victory, when we will defeat the enemy, how to predict the course of the war, the saturday

political club program returns to the espresso airwaves to help understand the events and predict the consequences of saturday vitaly portnikov and maria gurska will discuss the most relevant issues in order to draw appropriate conclusions, you want to know how what is happening today will affect our tomorrow, watch the saturday political club, what are saturdays not espresso , kyiv central station, 7 o'clock in the morning on a sunny spring day vitaly returns home 5 weeks after russian troops liberated kyiv region his city irpin is now synonymous with the brutality of russian

soldiers and mass murders now i want to fight i want to return home but i am afraid to find out that one of my friends relatives or neighbors was tortured or killed by the russian military today, irpin is a ghost town, but when vitaly left the city, the sounds of war rang out from everywhere. on wednesday, i went out here with a friend to smoke. heard the whistling of mortar shells and bombs, there were three loud explosions that could destroy any building here. that's where the glass flew from the blast wave that burned this house. the wave that burned

this house. to him that his house is safe, come in barbos, we are at home, it is a real mess before we leave. back to the war, 70,000 people lived in irpen, most of them were forced to leave this city, a few houses remained here intact, many people simply have nowhere to return, i returned on april 15, all my things

were on the floor, the door was broken, the apartment was ransacked, i think the russians were jealous of our life they are still jealous of life they said they came here for a special operation i believe this special operation was meant to just destroy our lives a few meters down the road there is an apartment building in ruins, a direct hit by russian rockets, charred and burned, almost nothing is left, volunteers are trying to save what they can, people who lived here are temporarily moving into a garage because this building will be demolished and a new

high-rise building will be built in its place, according to local authorities, about 70% the cities were destroyed as a result of hostilities more than 800 million euros are needed to build new houses today volodymyr cleans his apartments hoping that his the youngest son will be able to return home soon, i haven't seen him for a month, i hope everything is fine with him, he's grown up a bit, i talk to him every day, volodymyr's wife and son fled the city on the first day of the war shortly after the bullets hit their kitchen, i replaced the window but i'm not sure that the russians won't come back here again , so i decided to put a film over the window in case it gets damaged again, gradually the reconstruction is in full swing these architects are part of a group of 120 ukrainian experts invited to assess the damage and develop a strategy for the redevelopment of the city in order to

understand whether people will be able to live in this apartment again, we need to order a survey of the entire building, it will show whether there is a threat of the house collapsing, if the preliminary survey confirms that everything is in order, then you can simply strengthen the supporting elements already the stove is being topped up, all about it will take some time and more than one thousand residential buildings have been destroyed, but there are still fears that kyiv and its surroundings remain under putin's crosshairs and around the city a serious blow may be dealt again"