Posted on 02/23/2021 7:03:02 AM PST by Kaslin
Throughout this month, Latvia has suspended up to seventeen Russian television channels that have been an aggressive and subversive force within the Baltic nation.
Earlier this month, a Russian channel named Rossija RTR was banned from Latvia by that nation’s National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP). The NEPLP reasons given for that action were that Rossija RTR had engaged in “incitement to hatred or discrimination against a person or group of persons on grounds of sex, race or ethnic origin. To summon to war or to cause military conflict on grounds of origin, nationality, religion or belief, disability, age or other circumstances.”
Since summer 2020, Rossija RTR has called Ukraine a “terrorist country” and engaged in several instances of calling for war against the Baltic States, among other provocations.
A day after the Rossija RTR ban, a further sixteen Russian channels were removed from Latvian programming for failure to comply with periodic registration requirements that all commercial broadcasts in Latvia are subject to.
While the content of these channels are seen from a variety of outlets other than traditional television mediums, these suspensions nevertheless represent the most recent public step by the Latvian government to stand against the aggressive impulses of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The controversy over media and journalism has been a focal point of these aggressions. Shortly before Christmas 2020, Latvia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a bulletin, directly targeting the Russian government, stating:
“A state that cannot control its own security services or, in the best traditions of the Stalinist era, uses them to eliminate its political opponents and suppress civil freedoms has neither moral nor the political or legal right to comment on domestic processes of democratic states. Besides, Russia also imposes restrictions on the freedom of its civil society on a regular basis by banning and censoring the media and the internet. The increasing crackdown on other public activists and human rights defenders as well as communications with this kind of content do not contribute to the improvement of either the situation in Russia, or Russia’s image internationally.”
Thirty years after its reaffirmation of independence against the U.S.S.R, Latvia is not backing down from the continued provocations of the Russian government but is actively pushing back against them and not just through the communications airwaves.
Latvia continues to assert its independence while concurrently forging greater ties with its NATO allies. In recent years the United States, Canada, and other NATO nations have held training exercises in the Baltic States and in 2018 Latvia met the NATO spending goal of 2% of its GDP on defense. That same year education reforms were proposed and subsequently adopted reasserting Latvian as the primary language of instruction, with certain subjects exempted, in schools predominated by ethnic minorities in Latvia. This move largely effects the nearly one-quarter of people in Latvia who use Russian as their first language.
While Russia is extremely larger than Latvia in terms of population and territory, as well as having extensive military and cyber capability, the response of the Baltic nation has been one of increasing assertiveness against Russia’s human rights abuses and calls attention to its past resistance against the Soviet empire; a post-World War II resistance that lasted longer than any other movement of that era against the Soviet Union.
Current trends, and the policies stemming from them by its government, indicate that Latvia will continue to push back against the aggressive impulses of the Russian government in the years ahead.
30% of Latvia’s population is Russian; they risk being incorporated into a “Greater Russia” (as happened with Ukraine, using that justification).
They might consider some kind of union with Lithuania due to cultural and linguistic similarities; they aren’t the same people, but there are no other related languages.
Latvia needs to stop persecuting their Russian minority. If they didn’t try to keep them as a permanent non-citizen underclass they wouldn’t have to worry about them being “rescued” from abroad. (not that Russia has any serious designs on invading Latvia in this century).
“Latvia needs to stop persecuting their Russian minority. If they didn’t try to keep them as a permanent non-citizen underclass they wouldn’t have to worry about them being “rescued” from abroad. (not that Russia has any serious designs on invading Latvia in this century).”
First, Russians invaded and occupied Latvia for half a century in the last century. They would do it again tomorrow if it were easy to get away with it.
Second, “As of January 2017, the vast majority of Latvia’s ethnic Russians, 71.1% or 398,549 persons, had citizenship.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Latvia#:~:text=Russians%20in%20Latvia%20live%20mainly%20in%20urban%20areas.&text=In%20the%20beginning%20of%202018,Russians%20emigrated%20to%20other%20countries.
Further, “Anyone who legally (according to Soviet law) gained a residence in Latvia before the summer of 1992 was able to claim that residence upon Latvian independence, even if that legal basis included Soviet confiscation of property. Returning property owners seeking to reclaim their possessions were compensated with equal land elsewhere, with no recourse to reclaim the particular property itself, or with certificates which could be used as discount coupons in acquiring shares in privatized properties. The Latvian government also pays pensions to all resident retirees regardless of ethnicity or citizenship or non-citizen status.”
In other words, the Latvians have been incredibly generous with the Russians while trying to preserve the Latvian nation as a LATVIAN nation.
Latvia could say the same to us about our Mexican minority, and I would ignore them; I don’t know that Latvia persecutes them. They wanted them to leave when they achieved independence, but I suspect many of those Russians assumed it was better to stay than return to Russia.
Thanks for chiming in, Captain Pravda.
“Latvia needs to stop persecuting their Russian minority.”
Their Russian population needs to stop getting Russian passports, they need to stop demanding Russian language schools for their kids, they need to stop spying for Moscow, and they need to stop agitating for the accursed Russians to invade again!
I got to visit Latvia in 1984 and I saw the (Soviet) Russian oppression of the Latvians up close and personal. It left a mark and I frankly don’t give a **** about any of the damned Russians who want to bring back the USSR and have it reconquer the Baltics.
People still remember the murders the Russians carried out to enforce their rule and they still remember the Russian campaigns to erase Latvian language, culture, and it’s people.
If someone is Russian in Latvia and is not interested in being Latvian then they need to go back to Russia where they can be Russian and leave the Latvians and the rest of Europe alone.
This is me trying really, really hard to be civil to you right now. I’ve seen Russian atrocities in person and I will never forget them and you should never excuse them.
There’s also this:
https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/latvians-campaign-national-independence-1989-1991
This does not affect the Latvian Orthodox Church channel.
Well, they have the kavorka.
Russians in Latvia have the inferior status of "non-citizens", which is (barely) one step above stateless person...excuse me if I understand why they would want Russian passports.
“Russians in Latvia have the inferior status of “non-citizens”, which is (barely) one step above stateless person...excuse me if I understand why they would want Russian passports.”
Wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Latvia#Citizenship
>>>As of January 2017, the vast majority of Latvia’s ethnic Russians, 71.1% or 398,549 persons, had citizenship.<<<
I like the hats
The point also stands that Russia is not the USSR. As long as Latvia does not threaten to invade Russia and does not break any bilateral deals that threaten Russia's national security, there is virtually zero danger of Russian invasion.
Ukraine brought all of their issues with Russia on themselves by threatening Russia (with the revocation of the long-term lease for the main base of the Black Sea Fleet with no other reason than 'politics') and committing human rights violations. Russia was unequivocally the "good guy" in that conflict.
I appreciate your mea culpa. Intellectual honesty never gets old.
Aside from lingering animosity towards the Russians who pine away for the ‘good old days’ of the USSR and who sometimes agitate for a return to Russian occupation there is no significant oppression of ethnic Russians in the Baltics.
Yes, they are required to learn the languages of their respective and adopted homelands but this is not an act of oppression unless you’re that prick in Moscow who’s looking for a pretext to justify invasion.
As to citizenship in the Baltics that’s more or less a moot question since 2004 when the Baltics joined the EU and all of these ‘stateless’ ethnic Russians became entitled to EU citizenship. A fair number of these people have migrated to other EU nations since then.
“The point also stands that Russia is not the USSR.”
Really? The tanks that rolled into Crimea, Donbass, and Georgia sure look like the USSR to me. The fact that too many Russians seek to reconquer their Soviet Empire also informs me that ‘Russia’ is not far off from being the USSR but with a more colorful flag.
“Ukraine brought all of their issues with Russia on themselves”
Ukraine is a sovereign country and so are the Baltics. Russia also screwed themselves over when they seized Crimea because the Ukrainians no longer provide the Russians with jet engines, tanks, heavy machinery, and all of the industrial base that Russia used to depend upon.
The Russian submarine fleet has been hamstrung because the highly specialized Ukrainian plant that used to produce the pumps for the Russian mercury cooled reactors closed shop and scrapped their toolsets.
The result is the long-promised Khabarovsk submarine is actually rusting alongside at Sevmash #1 because they can’t fuel the reactor until they get the cooling pumps to work reliably. And that means the thing isn’t reliable by Russian standards...which means things are pretty bad.
They’d have been better off just buying a nice boat from the Germans who have the know-how to build these things.
“Russia was unequivocally the “good guy” in that conflict (with Ukraine).”
Like hell they were. They wanted Crimea and were butthurt that the commies had given it to Ukraine in the misguided belief that the ‘gift’ was just window dressing since Ukraine was at the time owned by Moscow. Then comes 1991 and Ukraine took Crimea with them on their way out of the USSR. And it was theirs to take.
Then Putin puts on an elaborate maskirovka with the Sochi Olympics and he deploys Red Army units and engineers to help with the Olympics. And then they were prepositioned to invade Crimea which they did. Putin then used the color revolution as a pretext for his ‘little green men’ to invade and seize Crimea and agitate to seize Donbass right up to the Dnieper...the latter effort failing.
Russia is NOT a ‘good guy’. Russia is a thieving nation of raiders who love Tolstoy and vodka and much like the Muslims they are often splendid people as individuals but the collective Russian culture is brutal, selfish, and self serving. Even Peter the Great said as much in his writings when he wisely understood that he could not conquer the Russian within himself.
What’s interesting to me as an anecdotal observation is that the Russians who fully adopt a new country and a new language are such wonderful people. You get them away from the somber depression of Russian society and culture and they blossom as individuals.
But immerse them in a culture dominated by gangsters and oligarchs and they become beaten drones who adopt a fatalism about their lives in which they don’t see themselves as having any control over their lives.
I say all of this because there is no circumstance in which a country proudly run by blatnoi can ever be a ‘good guy’. It’s like saying that Pablo Escobar did some nice things for Colombia.
Sorry, MercyFlush, but your take is a load of low-grade globalist propaganda, especially on ‘Russia-Ukraine’.
The same crap was disseminated regarding the Five Day War in Georgia in 2008. Now, it is fully debunked, the theory of “Russian aggression” is flushed down the toilet, and even Georgia itself blames the war on its ex-president who is a fugitive from justice.
“”Really? The tanks that rolled into Crimea, Donbass, and Georgia sure look like the USSR to me. The fact that too many Russians seek to reconquer their Soviet Empire also informs me that ‘Russia’ is not far off from being the USSR but with a more colorful flag.””
Would you mind to cite a reputable first-hand source, regarding the Russian presence on Donbas? No Euromaidan and InformNapalm Soros propaganda outlets and CNN repeating it.
The only Russian troops ever captured in Donbas are a dozen VDV conscripts, who made a wrong turn. None ever had a gun.
OSCE carefully monitors the situation and never witnessed the Russian troops. German intelligence said there are none.
The only source to the contrary in Bellingcat with “satellite photos” expert said are photoshops.
The POW exchanges between the Kiev regime and Confederates are telling. All the “Russians” in the exchanges are Ukrainian citizens for some reason.
“Ukraine is a sovereign country and so are the Baltics. “
Do you think Venezuela and Cuba are sovereign enough to be anti-American and it is okay and great?
“Russia also screwed themselves over when they seized Crimea because the Ukrainians no longer provide the Russians with jet engines, tanks, heavy machinery, and all of the industrial base that Russia used to depend upon.
The Russian submarine fleet has been hamstrung because the highly specialized Ukrainian plant that used to produce the pumps for the Russian mercury cooled reactors closed shop and scrapped their toolsets.”
Would you mind to be a little bit more recent? The above situation fueled the enormous industrial boom in Russia. In 2020 its non-commodity exports almost surpassed that of oil and gas. In 2021 it would surpass for sure.
Where do you think the engineers building the pumps in Ukraine gone? They are building them in Russia and China now. The same is true for aircraft and marine turbines and a great deal of other things.
It resembles me as if Mexico would decide to burn its Chrysler plants. Chrysler would still build vehicles but the jobs in Mexico would be gone for good.
The same is true for Ukraine, lost its whole high-added value production and now the poorest country in Europe.
A doctor in Ukraine now makes $180 a month. Under “Russian puppets” it was 10 to 20 times more than that.
There are no engineering and manufacturing jobs left anymore.
Who do you think they blame for their situation? If you’d talk with the real Ukrainians you’d learn that the anti-Americanism approaches the Venezuelan level. They understand full well that severing the Russian ties is the reason of their misery. If you’d look into Motor Sych and China situation it has particularly enraged the local folks, and in particularly anti-American fashion, because Bolton was openly involved.
That is why the US Embassy mulling the closure of the TV channels telling the truth, so that only the Soros lies of “Russians are coming from Donbas” would be available. They realize that if the ballon goes up it would be more like Benghazi than Tehran.
Have you actually spent any significant time in modern Russia? I have. I lived in Krasnodar Region for almost two years 2017-2018. I have a permanent residence permit in Russia.
Modern Russia has its problems related to the history of the USSR, but is also full of happy, joyful, successful people who are living full, fulfilling lives. The Russian middle class is huge and growing. People own homes/apartments and cars. In fact, traffic is an enormous problem in most large cities because the Communists never imagined that so many people could possibly have cars. People have disposable income to go on vacation and enjoy themselves. I saw very little of the darkness and fatalism that you are speaking to...it sounds as if your perception is stuck in the late 80s/early 90s.
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