They’ll have to build another monument when Russia liberates Europe a third time.
Sounds big but it is about half the height of the Washington monument which stands 555 ft tall
The Soviet obelisk was almost as high as the average utility bill German citizens are receiving.
Built in 1985, thirty years after the end of WW2, This was when real pushback to Soviet rule was beginning in the Baltic states so it was a big FU reminder to Latvia that it was a subject state. Besides that it was a classic example of the really hideously ugly monuments the Soviets erected in the final generation of its existence that were both massive and tacky looking at the same time.
Because that’s a smart move
What is forgot here in the west, because it is NOT TAUGHT, is that the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania, were equal victims of the Poland crime! On 23 August 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop (nonaggression) Treaty was signed by two of the bloodiest regimes in modern history, an act that made WW2 inevitable!
While most know how it partitioned Poland like a farm animal, what was equally bad was the raft of secret provisos, including 'spheres of influence'. When Stalin moved in on his allocation of Poland on 17 September 1939, he also 'invited' these countries to sign 'mutual assistance pacts' which gave the Soviet military unrestricted right to establish military bases within. Upon the surrender of France to Germany in June 1940, the Soviet Union used those same troops to aid the full invasion that removed those countries from the map. In the 1+ year prior to Germany's Operation Barbarossa, the Soviet occupiers imprisoned local leaders, killed some and force-exiled large groups to eastern Russia. Their 'friendship' operations were sufficient that, like in the Ukraine, there were many greeting the German Army as liberators.
So it is no wonder that with memories like these AND seeing Russia's CURRENT actions in the Ukraine, they have decided that it is time for these monuments to go!
Europe needs to figure out that Russia has already started this fight, and that they are in it. They can do it voluntarily or forcefully. They can do it in time to save themselves or they can do it when it is too late.
They could have just put a hat on it and called it a conversion.
This is finally showing respect to the 87,000 Latvians who volunteered for the SS and it is clearly the best way to advance peace in the region.