‘They are silent’: Latvia to order 6,000 Russians to leave country in 90 days

Latvia, an EU state, will issue notices to over 6,000 Russians next month ordering them to leave the country within 90 days. Ingmars Lidaka, the head of the parliamentary committee on citizenship and migration, said, “There are 5,000 to 6,000 of them. These are people who have not shown any desire, either to take the exam or to obtain a temporary residence permit. They are silent.” According to news agency Elta, the Latvian Interior Minister has confirmed that the notices are currently being drafted and will be sent out by September to “around 6,000” recipients. Russians take language test to avoid expulsion In May, dozens of Russians in Latvia took a language test to prove their loyalty to the country where they have lived for decades. Speaking Russian instead of Latvian had not been a problem until the war in Ukraine changed the picture. Last year’s election campaign was dominated by questions of national identity and security concerns. “(If I am deported), I would have nowhere to go, I have lived here for 40 years,” said Valentina Sevastjanova, 70, a former English teacher and Riga guide said. Before Moscow invaded Ukraine last February, tens of thousands of Russian speakers in Latvia used to gather every May 9 around a monument in the Latvian capital of Riga to commemorate the Soviet victory in World War Two. Their gatherings were banned after the invasion and the 84-meter structure was crushed on the orders of the government – which is dominated by ethnic Latvians and which would now prefer to bury the memories of being part of the former Soviet Union. Latvia bans Russian state media Before its long-awaited independence in the 1990s, Latvia was part of the Soviet Union following which it gained membership in the European Union and NATO. Since then, Latvia has been trying to erase its Soviet past. Even before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, authorities in Latvia began pulling the plugs on Russian state media within Latvian borders. Last year in August, the National Electronic Mass Media Council banned over 20 Russian media outlets, deeming them a threat to national security. Following the Russian offensive against Ukraine, the war-torn country has found immense support from Latvia, both in terms of humanitarian and military assistance. With inputs from Reuters