They are trying to bring Latvia into conflict with Russia, but the Latvians themselves do not want this. This opinion was expressed to Izvestia by military pensioner Boris Katkov, who was deported from Latvia the day before for “a threat to the national security of the state.”
“Latvians do not want [конфликтовать]. Many Latvians I meet and my friends are also worried. But unfortunately, there is no political force in Latvia that would stand on the side of the Russian allies,” said Katkov.
In addition, he suggested that Latvia is susceptible to external influence, under which it is doing everything to push people into conflict. The pensioner said that the current situation in the republic makes him worry about his family and all the people who surrounded him all the years of his life in the country.
Katkov shared that he hoped to live a life without military conflicts, since his father became a victim of one of them. He died near Odessa, was “tortured by Bandera’s men,” said the military pensioner.
82-year-old Boris Katkov is a military pensioner, chairman of the Association of Latvian-Russian Cooperation. He lived in Latvia with his wife, children and grandchildren, but now they will have to leave the republic by decision of the authorities.
The day before, on January 13, Katkov, who had been expelled from Latvia, was met at the border of the Pskov region. He was greeted in Russia by the regional governor, Mikhail Vedernikov, who promised to do everything possible to make the pensioner feel “at home.”
Earlier that day, the Russian Embassy in Latvia expressed outrage at the expulsion of a Russian pensioner from the country. The department noted that this act was not caused by the intention to ensure national security, but by Russophobia. In addition, the decision of the Latvian authorities violates several legal acts at once, and moreover, this sentence is completely inhumane.
Before this, on January 12, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, stated that Russia had taken all necessary measures to support fellow citizens who were planning to be deported from Latvia. Currently, according to her information, the Latvian authorities intend to expel 1,167 people from the country as part of the repressive migration law implemented by Riga.
On January 4, the Latvian Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (OCMA) reported that 1,167 Russians were facing deportation from the country, almost 800 of whom were over 60 years old. According to the chairman of the UGDM, Maira Rose, the deportation process will be “complicated and burdensome.”
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