what is latvia like today? has anyone thought? if not, then short ligbes is a small state in northern europe, after joining the eu and nato in 2004, it was completely deprived of independence with a killed industry. today , just over half a million people live in the country, the population is aging, the birth rate is low, and the working-age part of it is leaving for countries with a higher standard of living, but they have also begun to expel russians. latvia makes money only in the service sector, sprats and riga balsam, but they now sell sprats also according to quotas. aizh balsam is interesting only people from the post-soviet space, because they remember latvia with the russian language, nordic character and friendly. but today it’s different. and i’m aksenia lebedeva with you. hello. if the economy is at zero, you need to feed people an idea, the more toxic it is, the fewer questions there will be, nothing is clear in principle, but it’s very interesting, latvia today, renouncing everything russian, is not moving to nation

latvia you militarization.ecessary to once again elementary to shift the focus from internal problems to fictitious security problems? it is easier to manage the population; it does not ask for it, but asks to be protected, that you are creating this issue. i asked a latvian journalist and a politician to an expert on the baltic countries. you and politicians, but are engaged in substituting the substitution of the real for the mythological, the substitution of the essential for the insignificant, and what does it do? and the most successful functionaries in the latvian political market are the most effective, successful latvian politicians. these are the people who do not give a damn about latvia's career. you can do it with it by agreeing behind the scenes by nato functionaries to overestimate the cost of work to expand the landfill to supply feeding. uh, on these, uh, semi-state, semi-direct contracts, that’s why they do it, and people do exactly that, that’s why there is competition in this niche, because h

this collective trauma in latvia, it still shapes relations with russia and with latvia, russian speaking minority which make up a quarter of the population. ready the soviet era victory monument was one focal point for tensions ethnic russians used to gather here to commemorate soldiers who fought against nazi germany in the 2nd world war. in august 2022, the latvian government had demolished and protest over the ukraine war for years are nice about shoes, documented the russian commemorations that took place here. ah, that was not for demolishing because i don't think that change is anything but linda, what is the ukraine start? if we tell that this is our enemy and on the monument and i've help okay, let's just do it in our spontaneously. let's go there, demolish it was our hands, you know, like berlin wall it, this is, oh, my be way of like relieving some kind of this, whatever pain or suffering that we have jowl then neither like i should have said i was going to drop box and thanks, show that i the i think it's a bit different with young people because i think they don't think in th

missy: let's talk about latvia. how many nato forces are present in latvia? and are you satisfied with nato's military presence in the baltic nations specifically, given their geography and history as soviet republics? pres. levits: we have nato military personnel from 10 other nations, 10 other nato nations here, and several from other nato states, and our own military forces. for the moment, it is enough. but because of the change of the strategic situation in europe, we need more troops. and we need to strengthen the eastern flank of nato. and of course, that mia is part of the eastern flank, and we will prepare our proposals so that we have more emphasis to defend, the common defense, and for the deployment of nato troops in our baltic region and in general, eastern part of europe. missy: it is interesting to see nato leadership make these decisions following president putin's invasion of ukraine, that many countries in eastern europe have in calling for four years. we know baltic nations have warned the west for a long time about the threat of russia and

missy: let's talk about latvia specifically. how many nato forces are present in latvia? are you satisfied with nato's military presence in the baltic nations, specifically given their geography and their history with soviet republic? president levits: we have nato military personnel from 10 other nations. 10 other nato nations here. and we have several thousand from others, nato member states, and we have also of course our own military forces. so that's for the moment it is enough. but because of a change of the strategic situation in europe, we need more troops and we need to strengthen all eastern flank of nato and of course latvia is part of the eastern flank. and we will prepare our proposals so that we have more emphasis to defend fence, and -- defense, and of course for the employment of -- deployment of nato troops in our region. baltic region, but in general in the eastern part of europe. missy: it's interesting to see nato's leadership make these decisions following president putin's invasion of ukraine that many countries in eastern europe have been calling fo

now the state security service of latvia is working with a bang.st be admitted they really do their job. recently there was a case, i have a friend who wrote that she was a repost and a simple kostya where he congratulated. eh? vladimir vladimirovich putin on march 8, girls, and for this she received 150 public hours of work through the court , imagine, this is our queen, that is, people are afraid to subscribe to you. if you are talking about something correctly, if you are a blogger er, or just repost something on your wall, an alternative opinion. this is, well, it is unacceptable, there is no alternative opinion. here we have such a democracy of double standards, we only allow what, in principle, is on the agenda of the political elite. and how is this explained? do people really not have a question that, well, you are promoting liberal democratic values, pluralism? freedom of opinion , human rights, an alternative point of view. and then bam one single agenda, step left, step right. you know, in fact, our biggest mistake is that we probably mi

now zach loses latvia's president they're going off he's a member of latvia's anti fascist committee. was the possibility they can't bear to see the revival of naziism in libya i can see it with the naked eye in the waters of the world upsets me most of all is that so-called democratic europe closes its eyes to the revival not as a group as a crew it was a. march sixteenth nineteen forty three during the second world war the last in legion was formed. thousands of volunteers in the country signed up to fight for the nazis. off independence every year on this date legion veterans have been officially committed to hold a parade in central region. in two thousand and five people today are going off and several other anti fascist clans and prison rape stood in the way of marching legionnaires. the police dispersed all the anti-fascists and let the s.s. veterans put the flowers at the freedom monument. cautious but. we believe in a free country fascists and their followers have no right to bring flowers to a symbol of the state if the state doesn't see itself as a nationalist. pull still o

there are many ukrainians in latvia now. you know the exact number. how many numbers are constantly changing. the latest number, which is more or less stable, is about 40,000 ukrainians who were registered or who applied for help to both national and local authorities. authorities, but you know. we also see that there is a constant stream of ukrainians crossing the latvian-russian border, those who are trying to escape through russia and from the occupied territories as well we see that some ukrainians are returning to ukraine , now some are using latvia as a transit country, that is, in fact, the figure that we can call more or less stable is 40 thousand. but do you know about the number of ukrainians who are starting to come to latvia ? it was a bit of a mystery because we saw several hundred citizens of ukraine crossing the border between latvia and russia in the summer and in september. now, for some reason, this flow has stopped and we have a suspicion that it is somehow related to the internal border management of russia and possibly also with t

day latvia and nazi germany. during the second of that. they must go. but they must leave out the. bottom up and i. think they would like to say it's national. the languages of the things they were thinking that they had to. speak latvian things about the rights and not feel if you're not a citizen and culture some of the six of the tropes in the coalition of things where you are discriminated against because you're in pure. theory alex saves mother is latvian but his father is russian he has a perfect command of both languages. he received an excellent education both as an engineer and as a journalist his son is a school people. papa you tell me what the sentence means. is often it's a loss when he tries to figure out his math textbook it's written in latvian. the internet translator says it means headline well yes that's a possibility. a country schools were formed in the middle of the past decade. russian take spokes were hastily replaced with latvian ones. now more than half of the subjects in russian languag

it's now been twenty years since latvia jeev sovereignty. but still independence day its most celebrated holiday and the freedom monument its main national icon aliant to hoffer of the country's population.

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 gover

in more than latvia the x. parties and was declared an enemy and spent almost two years behind bars for taking part in the killing of local volunteers they were helping the germans. kannan of was acting on of the situation taken by parties and tribunals in one nine hundred forty three. when radical nationalists came to power after the regime change their lackeys started a massive campaign against entire fascists of people who had fought in the entire hitler coalition they were all to review the old can of the war edition in order to whitewash naziism and fascism as usual for she is a. ivers garda is leader of a political organization called the national front of latvia the front publishes a newspaper founded by him. that's weekends and during public holidays volunteers hand out free copies to anyone willing to read the paper. its name contains three deeds they stand for de occupation the call in isolation and the russification. for a long time talk to god towards ethics at the academy of culture some of his for

but anyway, no, in latvia and l lithuania also. we will work on that. at the same time we are looking for more, more reasonable nato partners' presence in the region because we saw from different military games that organized by very prominent institutions here in the u.s. that we really need to strengthen the presence of nato forces. in the region. not only by number of soldiers on our land, ground, but also by increasing prepositions of the different equipment and ammunition in the region. because in our case, if you speak about possible aggression, the most important issue is time of response. and if we want to shorten this time, we really need higher presence of nato forces in the region and also prepositioning of equipment, technique, ammunition in the region. it will be more shorter, because if we just u.s. decides to help and we are sure you will decide. but anyway, we need many days to transport equipment to europe. it means we need to find solutions. and also will be one of the questions what we will discuss probably during the next nato summit

what does the integrated part of society mean, the feeling of being a citizen of latvia?l wants to speak here you are ours or now you are not ours for us - this is a language, that is, we are a small state if there are russians, a ukrainian, a chinese, an american, it doesn't matter if he speaks to us in latvian, then in principle we i admit that he is our uh, and the problem we had was due to the fact that basically 30 years had passed. the hotel speaks simply in latin in our country. and you understand the situation. where i live, how do you pay and my children, who have learned russian, they are going somewhere, for example, i don’t know, yes, i drank, yes, and they can’t speak the swallow’s language there. but they cannot get service in theirs state in its own language and this is definitely more impossible, that is, if people want to integrate, they must be loyal, they must learn and speak this language, and if they must choose between latvia and russia, they must choose latvia and not russia, if they choose russia, i you have nothing to do here, but you see, in fact

latvia giving assistance to accommodate and feed these refugees?res. levits: there are over 3 million refugees already. 2 million of them are in poland. more or less, 10,000 or less that 10,000 in lafayette. because we don't have a direct border with ukraine and we are welcoming ukrainian refugees and all of the assistance which is needed. so we should be ready to have refugees and the locking people welcoming the refugees. because after the second world war, many latvians were also refugees, they came through sweden, germany and immigrated to the united states, there is a big lesbian community. and now there's a second world war messaging. we are welcoming ukrainian refugees and trying to help with all necessary help that they need. missy: how does lafayette plan to reduce its dependence on russian energy supplies and more broadly, how do you think europe can wean itself off of russian oil and gas without jeopardizing the climate change goals that it has? pres. levits: in lafayette, we should not overestimate our dependence from russian energy. ap

present day latvia and nazi germany. but also. during the second world war and of the second. they must go. there was a diversion but there must be rather than one mockery for. some things they would like to say is nationalistic not be the languages of the slaves or of the truths they had to. speak latvian the things about tents and rights and not if you're not a citizen. of the drops and the culmination of things where you are discriminated against because your impure. duty alex sanz the mother is latvian but his father is russian he has a perfect command of both languages he received an excellent education both as an engineer and as a journalist his son is a school people. papa tell me what percent and smeared. is often at the loss when he tries to figure out his math textbook it's written in latvia and. the internet translator says it needs headline well yes that's a possibility. a country schools were formed in the middle of the past decade. russian textbooks were hastily replaced with latvian ones. now more than hal

so, regarding latvia, this is the opening of a second front.ecause since i am observing the situation on this territory. before this decision, mass repressions were carried out. bans on the activities of certain political forces were carried out against russian-speaking politicians. that is, today, even as in tallinn, decide which are always latvian russians, who were always more organized than estonian russians. they will not be able to organize themselves, allegedly about the russian party, which has always been presented to us as our friendly center. consent completely passed in the person of its leader nil ushakov and all deputies e, and them and the city and seven, allatvia and the city duma. she completely switched to the nazi side, being afraid of reprisals, today we will meet, there, an unorganized protest of more than four hundred thousand of the population of latvia, the russian-speaking population of latvia, for which this place is . assemblage point of nations that is, those who come there are russian people. sorry e. i predict the

and for these small subset of, of, of russian citizens who live in latvia on a permanent basis, who used to have our citizenship or our permanent status. we ask of them if you wish to continue to reside in lafayette as russian citizens. then please, at least for the minimum level, learn our language, and this is not an outline. just thing to ask. these are not, that has nothing to do with my know are these, these are foreign nationals who reside in laughter. and they are foreign nationals who gave up our status. our citizenship for russian citizenship last july. your own, the central statistical bureau showed the old groups or the polled said the attitude of lot 3. and so the russian speaking population had changed for the worse . and the majority of russian speaking families now believe that fascism was increasing in the country. that was not the case at the start of the war. that's not quite the outcome you want. it is it. i'm, i don't know what data you are relying on the data that i was just introduced by the, in the, in the government we were looking at is that as the word progresse

interview with latvian blogger romans samoll latvia's 30-year journey.s is already sorry, but they smack of some kind of nazism, and nazism is not far from fascism. as they say dual citizenship sign under control political elite. germany - this is our president the united states is our prime minister not all people are equal especially the rights and freedoms of european ones. the surname is natural, as it were, goodbye uncomfortable, really. we see ukraine very well, how children are now being taken to germany and it's just business again and they are being sold to such a same-sex guy. and the old nazi training manuals, the fight for the minds of nasa, the biggest mistake is that we probably missed the youth, who in latvia pulls the strings and pushes the nations together with their foreheads british intelligence, in principle , is in charge of everything roman samomul, a latvian in exile , a current interview with a blogger, whom the latvian special services announced a hunt for today in belarus 1 immediately after the panorama. in the asia-pacific reg

they receive it while they are in latvia.hough they can also legally stay in latvia for three months with valid documents even without registration, so i can’t say the exact number, but it’s definitely more than 20 thousand more than 14 thousand received a work permit in latvia ukraine they live mostly in host families or in some specially prepared premises for this purpose. they live in families, but the municipal authorities of many cities and villages also provide housing , for example, they give away various school premises and other social infrastructure buildings are also used for housing refugees or temporarily of displaced persons, latvia was one of the first countries that provided us with military assistance, you gave us your own stinger anti-aircraft systems, which helped a lot during the defense of kyiv, i am defective 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 arrive in ukraine that is why my answer is yes th

what today. represents latvia, has anyone thought?a small state in northern europe, after joining the eu and nato in 2004, was completely deprived of independence with a killed industry. today , just over one and a half million people live in the country, the population is aging, the birth rate is low, and the working population is leaving for countries with higher standard of living, but they also began to expel russians. they make money... latvia is only in the service sector, sprats and riga balsam, but they now sell sprats also according to quotas, and riga balsam is interesting only to people from the post-soviet space, because they remember latvia with the russian language, nordic character and friendly, but today there another thing, i’m akeniya lebedeva with you, hello. if the economy is at zero, you need to feed people an idea, the more toxic it is, the fewer questions there will be, basically nothing unclear, but very interesting. latvia today, renouncing everything russian, is moving not to nationalism and the revival of it

no russians to enter latvia?nly issue on an exceptional basis, i think what you call humanitarian visas. there are some who have received that permit, but the general rule is no visas. the german chancellor scholz says that's a fundamental mistake. he says, "this is not a war on the russian people. it is putin's war. it is important for us to understand there are a lot of people fleeing from russia because they fundamentally disagree with the russian regime." you really want to lock them out of getting a safe haven in latvia ? once again, it's important to distinguish a tourist visa from a humanitarian visa. we are accepting, on an exceptional basis, russian citizens who are indeed fleeing the putin regime. we have, in latvia, we're actually hosting many news services, russian edition, including the bbc�*s, and many others — the former independent russian media, which is banned in moscow, is alive in latvia and reporting back into russia. so, of course, you always find a way to let that which would be termed a hu

ba in latvia is actually a very big problem for latvia. why?ause the mouth is now closed to everyone. the state security services of latvia are working with a bang. and this must be admitted , they really cope with their task. recently there was a case, i have a friend wrote that she was a repost, but a simple post where he congratulated. e. vladimir vladimirovich putin with girls on march 8, and for this she received 150 public hours of work through the court . if you speak correctly about something, if you are a blogger, or just repost something on your wall, an alternative opinion. this is, well, unacceptable, there is no alternative opinion. here we have such a democracy of double standards, we only allow what, in principle, goes according to agenda of the political elite. and how is this explained? do people really not have questions that, well, you are promoting the liberal democratic values ​​of the plural. lism freedom of opinion human rights alternative point of view and then bam - one single agenda, step left step right. you know, in

what do you make of that given, you know, especially the history of latvia and latvia's positions in eastern europe? president levits: so latvia and all other member states of nato, which joined nato after 1990 as democratic states. it was their choice. of course, the principle of independence and self-determination says it is for the state to choose alliance. the whole world knows that nato is a defensive alliance. no one in nato is thinking to expand and to make war against another country. so it was increase of security, increase of peace in europe through ak session -- accession of member states since 1990. i will say if it would not be done, then we would have much more worse situation as now. >> i think the elephant in the room when we're talking about eastern europe and the baltics in particular in this conversation about raesh's intentions, vis-a-vis nato, is the possibility that president putin could decide to widen the war, potentially launch a direct attack on nato nations? and you referenced earlier, latvia's feeling of security. i'm hoping you can elaborate on that. what

and the canadian, a government, which is heading the, the, the natal efforts in latvia has pledged also much. it's already money still very real money a to move up to a full brigade. and you can say, well, there's one brigade is 10 brigades. this is the question for the, for the military people, i'm a politician. but the, the ramping up is very, very visible surface. article 5 is, is a guarantee for all member states is i would ask you whether you think that the u. s. is the lead nation and nato would go to boss, say, for the sake of albania, or north of macedonia, or slovenia. i say it's not going to work for the sake of someone. we are all in the military alliance together, and that is our combined power. the combined power is for 75 years where nato has been working. it has the 3rd war, and that is its goal. nature was not form and it's not working in europe in order to fight a war. nature was there so that a war would never have to be fought. and the difficulty the brain has is that it is not in nature. it was not in mitchell for the attack. and that, i think, is the reason that the

the atmosphere in latvia for a russian speaking person is very difficult. when i say you're buying up the day to the latest from around the world, do you feel free to have thought t dot com for more stories minus b to scott's? and he's been great to have you with us. thank you for watching for what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy confrontation, let it be an arms race is on offense. very dramatic development. only personally and getting to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successful, very critical time time to sit down and talk ah, the bull, let's say, is to teams. farm book for us is just like his predecessor is a fan of the moon to color transition. and they may have to way for a normalization on the holy see russia relations why the need so because they acknowledge the fact that the west can not to be already pretty standardized. again, the west these laws to the west anthro, to the post christian era. a city are you still with me for madison growth? no moms and in the deal with grandma, but a lot of them boug

on the other hand, latvia is always at the forefront of old western trends. and if there is now a trend towards the abolition of everything russian in latvia is leading this movement, the russian speaking minority of the past 20 years has already been so down tron humiliated, and artificially integrated and assimilated into latvian society. that essentially, in the last elections, there was no danger to the authorities. but apparently as a deputy of the reagan city council, from the russian union of latvia, said commentating on the decision to demolish the monument. these people already have a taste of blood on their lips, said they want to deal with any objectionable manifestations as much as possible now, of those who gathered on may the 10th that the monument to the liberator, what did they try to come to the regal city whole or simply outraged, they all outraged that they are not allowed to live according to their traditions. the habits this constant demand for public loyalty, the constant, public denial and crisen, russia has become unbearable. the atmos

well, my guest today is latvia's prime minister, kristjanis karins. just how vulnerable is latvia?rime minister kristjanis karins, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. vladimir putin's invasion of ukraine happened six months ago. right now, here in latvia, has that war raised the level of fear to new heights? what the war has done has raised the level of mobilisation. so the first effect was the mobilisation from the grassroots, people rallying to the support of ukraine citizens, ordinary people coming together, asking, "what can we do to help ukraine?" and we've had a mass outpouring of... we have communities making camouflage nets, we have people providing medications, companies donating all sorts of vehicles, donating all sorts of humanitarian aid, blankets, you name it, that has been going on. people donating cash — and not very wealthy people, ordinary people. so we've had a massive mobilisation of society, because we here in latvia very well understand that the ukrainians are, in a sense, fighting our war. they are fighting against russian imperialism. right now, it happens to be

alexander lukashenko noted with regret in his congratulations that more and more residents of latvia feel that that their politicians do not work for the benefit of the people and look at foreign advisers, inflaming the situation. they pulled forces and weapons into the baltics, built walls, pushed your country into an economic disaster. that our centuries-old ties are that reliable foundation on which, despite all the difficulties , mutually beneficial friendly relations between the republic of belarus and the republic of latvia will be restored, we will not be separated, nor an artificial fence with barbed wire, the impregnable struggle of the interim latvian leaders with our president emphasized the state symbols of history and monuments of ancestors, and also wished the people of latvia a peaceful sky of solidarity and the right choice. belarusian medicine is popular among foreigners, this is evidenced by the figures this year, over 130,000 foreign guests from 147 countries have already applied to our healthcare institution for such assistance. this was noted by the participants

also on his own, but as part of a multi lateral deployment would latvia and principal be prepared to join such a mission. this is a very sooner escalation, as you're talking about what my calls a suggestion. i think the strength of this suggestion is it starts to create strategic ambiguity for russia and mccaul does have a point in nato, in democracies, we have all the time, put down red lines. what we won't do, what we won't do, what we will not do. and forgot forgetting about the fact that russia looks at this and says, oh, well, we can count, they won't do this, they won't do that. they won't do the 3rd my call and suggest and actually create strategic. i think you would need for russia a and sort of blurs the red lines that we have a drawn ourselves. so the point is not now to say what we will or what we won't do . what we must do in nature is increase our spending increase our defense interest rate a do all of us in a very visible and transparent manner. so the put in sees, we are serious problem, i call search these allies not to be cowardly. these are the moment was being appr

only 2 percent of russian citizens residing permanently and latvia voted in the russian presidential elections. i think that speaks book quotes of attitude of these people and these are not ethnic minorities. these are russian citizens residing here, or pressure on this conference where you have to leave it the thank you very much of data being on complex. all right, thank you. on the hudson's euro and see russia as their enemy. many young people in georgia have positioned themselves against the pro russian government. and since then, opportunity in the upcoming parliamentary elections. what they want for the country is true. independence. focus on europe. in 30 minutes on the w of the big games do next door scene life and the lyla in revision there. are there any truth to the stereotypes about these? make sure it's easy to help and how do residents survive there? meet them to discuss exactly that life and we'll be here in 75 minutes on d w the if you speak to some language and culture some country, how do we become different ours discrete logic. one of the people in just a 100 days.