As of: March 12, 2024, 3:30 p.m
By: Lisa Mahnke
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Press
Split
The Russia election is causing tension in Latvia.
Police checks are intended to prevent glorification of Putin.
There may also be another goal behind this.
Riga – Concern about Russian President Vladimir Putin is great in the Baltic states.
Ahead of the Russian election from March 15th to 17th, Latvia is increasing security measures in front of the Russian embassy.
Russian citizens who want to vote at the embassy should be checked by the police.
The police want to “suppress any attempts to glorify Russian aggression,” said the head of the Latvian national police, Armands Ruks, according to the Russian exile newspaper
The Moskow Times
.
Latvia wants to hold police checks in front of the embassy on election day.
© IMAGO/SNA/Sputnik Moskow Russia/Aleksey Nikolskyi
This included controls, but also possible expulsions of illegal Russian immigrants, said the police chief.
They want to check whether people are in Latvia legally, said Ruks.
He explained that similar checks were also taking place on Latvian citizens in Russia.
In Latvia, around 25 percent of the population is of Russian origin.
In February, Latvian Justice Minister Inese Libina-Egnere said that by participating in the election, Russian citizens in the Baltic states would "fundamentally support" the Russian invasion of Ukraine and hinted at criminal prosecution under Latvian law.
Nevertheless, Russian elections will be made possible in Latvia, on March 17 at the Russian embassy in Riga.
Only one polling station in Latvia: Moscow accused of sabotage due to lack of security
According to the TV channel
Rus.LSM,
the Russian embassy criticized the closure of the other Russian consulates in Latvia - and were those in Daugavpils and Liepaja.
This and the “lack of willingness of the Latvian authorities to ensure the security of polling stations outside the embassy premises” led to the Russia election in Latvia with only one polling location.
Moscow accused Latvia of sabotage because too little was being done to ensure the security of polling stations in Russian embassies.
“Diplomats from the Baltic states in Moscow have been summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry because our repeated appeals to ensure the security of polling stations have not been adequately responded to,” the official statement said.
Russia's criticism of the lack of security in the Russian election affects all Baltic states.
“In the event of continued sabotage, we will act decisively in a bilateral context,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said ,
according to Latvian broadcaster
LRT.lt.
The answer from Lithuanian ministry spokeswoman Paulina Levickyte is: “It is not the Kremlin’s place to lecture democratic countries about elections.” She also suspected that the election date, which falls on the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea, was a provocation.
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Latvia's migration policy under criticism
With a population of around 25 percent of Russian origin, Latvia has Russian minorities of similar size to Lithuania or Estonia.
Only half of the population of Russian origin also has Latvian citizenship.
Around 180,000 other people have the special status of “non-citizens of Latvia”, which Putin has already criticized on several occasions.
Since the start of the Ukraine war, Latvia's image as a contact point for Russian journalists, activists and anti-war politicians in exile has strengthened.
At the same time, Russia skepticism increased in Latvia.
Already in February, Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina warned against propaganda about the Russia election.
However, critics suspect that Latvia's police controls during the Russian election are primarily aimed at enforcing the change in the law on language requirements.
It stipulates that a certain level of knowledge of the Latvian language or enrollment in a language course is mandatory for residence status for people with only Russian citizenship.
It is said that anyone who does not comply with this regulation should leave Latvia.
Meanwhile, tensions are also rising on the Finnish-Russian border: According to information from Helsinki, Russia has now smuggled several thousand refugees there.
(lismah)