Latvian Defense Minister Raimonds Vejonis claimed today that Russia has dispatched “specially-trained, professional provocateurs” to his nation to try to fuel unrest among the nation’s Russian minority.
Vejonis claimed the goal was “to increase negative sentiment in society,” citing the recent public criticism of military policy by economist Aleksandrs Gaponenko, who previously helped organize a failed referendum on increased rights for Latvia’s Russian population.
Roughly 15 percent of Latvia’s population is ethnic Russian “non-citizens,” who are not allowed to vote. The recent government hype surrounding Russian “plots” has many of the Russians fearing a crackdown which Vejonis’ comments certainly did not rule out.
Rather, Vejonis’ response was to promise that Latvia would more than double military spending by 2020 in an effort to reach the 2 percent “goal” the US has set for NATO members. Even with twice the funding, it is unclear how the tiny nation’s military of 6,000 soldiers is going to be converted into a difference maker.
Latvia is on of the Baltic countries under the Swedish banking system, the Swedish bankers been investing to steal the people’s money in Balkan for years, thus far they have done a very good job by almost bankrupting the nation, the government of Latvia is a puppet, if not a poodle to EU especially Sweden. The government nor the Latvian economy is not independent nor has a source of income but tourism and small factories, the Swedish-Europe invested money in Latvia mostly is about tourism which is far less then Greece or Spain, few years ago the country almost went bankrupt due to Swedish banking system wanting for Latvia to be bankrupt, so they could continue milking the cow as they do, so the Latvian government would say whatever to pleases their masters.
Another NATO stooge agreeing to spend money on arms to satisfy NATO and Americas need to sell as much Arms as they can regardless of these Countries being in poverty themselves.
And of course nothing to do with Putin the megalomaniac having a mid-life crisis and invading sovereign territory of other countries after inciting internal problems. Shame he doesn't care as much about Russians actually in Russia.
“Vejonis’ response was to promise that Latvia would more than double military spending by 2020 in an effort to reach the 2 percent “goal” the US has set for NATO members.”
oh there it is right there. scare mongering and war mongering to increase the military budge and spending…..Austerity for everyone except the arms merchants of death and destruction
The propaganda scum is rising to the surface.
Mr. Ditz should check his facts. The Russian minority has as much right to vote as the Latvian majority, but voting is restricted to those who have citizenship. Citizenship is held by most of the Russians, but a sizable fraction has chosen not to apply for citizenship, which requires passing an exam in the Latvian language. The majority of Latvian Russians are as committed to their state as the rest of the population.
As I have stated several times before, the strategic objective of NATO's Baltic agitprop is the reduction or elimination of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
That's laughable, The Baltics are surrounded. Belarus alone could take out Latvia Lithuania and Estonia together, and Belarussians would do it too,
Where is your proof of that? And please don't say RT or Pravda!!
Me too attention whore banana republic..
Excellent strategy! Putin is being lured into the Baltic trap. He can't abandon the Russian colonists (as in Estonia, Stalin sent them in post WWII to keep the Latvians down) without discrediting himself. He can't support them without attacking NATO. The US can't abandon its NATO allies without discrediting itself as Israel's protector. For obvious geographical reasons, the US cannot defend Israel other than from NATO bases in Western Europe. No defence of Latvia, no NATO. No NATO, no protector of Israel. Let's see just how powerful the Israel Lobby really is!
It seems to me that if Latvia has banned a certain "non-citizen" ethnic group from voting, as stated in the article, then this is, from a democratic perspective, a rather non-democratic act. I'm pretty sure that as "non-citizens" they are still required to pay taxes, though. If true, why hasn't the US vocally condemned this and as long as it persists, withheld any recognition of the Latvian government and most surely withheld any financial and military support. Of course, that presupposes that the US still cares about the little niceties of democracy.
Hmmm…well, on second thought…wouldn't want to disrupt the march to war.
The issue of non-citizenship is quite simple. The non citizen group can become citizens by learning the Latvian language and passing the exam. If they don't want to do that there are two options. 1. Stay a non-citizen, or, 2. Move to Russia where I am sure you will receive a heroes welcome in the land of the mafia. Latvia wouldn't need to request NATO assistance if they could trust the Kremlin. Unfortunately from historical facts, they cannot trust Russia.
Thanks Antiwar for censoring my comments.
[moderator’s note: It’s not nice to lie about Antiwar.com. Your comments weren’t “censored” (we’re not a government and we have no power whatsoever to stop you from saying anything you want). They WERE held by our automatic moderation system for some reason — and approved as soon as I got to them – TLK]
Right. The government of Latvia sure has been taking good care of its people since it hitched its cart to NATO and "The West". Massive unemployment has been created.
It has lost 25% of its population and most of its young men to emigration because of the wonderful system created there.
At the same time, GDP has risen from about 8 to 30 billion dollars. THAT must involve some severe cooking of the books.
Look here.
https://www.google.com/search?as_q=latvia+populat…
https://www.google.com/search?lr=&newwindow=1…
Right. The government of Latvia sure has been taking good care of its people since it hitched its cart to NATO and "The West". Massive unemployment has been created.
It has lost 25% of its population and most of its young men to emigration because of the wonderful system created there.
At the same time, GDP has risen from about 8 to 30 billion dollars. THAT must involve some severe cooking of the books.
Look here.
https://www.google.com/search?as_q=latvia+populat…
https://www.google.com/search?lr=&newwindow=1…
What a lot of people don't know is these Baltic countries that left the Soviet Union . Have torn down the statues of the Russian soldiers that rescued them from the NAZI's . This indicated to me they would rather be Nazis . I fear that's what we are dealing with in some of the eastern European countries . They just got out of one totalitarian ideology only to join another maybe worse ideology