Inevitably the monument complex located at Victory Square will be demolished. The topics on the table now are about when and how this will happen, said Latvia’s Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš in his interview to TV24 on Friday, 6 May.
The politician said the monument in question basically glorifies the occupation of Latvia, which is why it has no place in an independent country.
«The time, I believe, has come when our society is unified in the belief that this monument has no place here. Now we need to think of how and when to do it,» said the PM.
Kariņš said members of Saeima’s Foreign Affairs Committee are already working on this topic, reviewing it from different sides. The PM said he is confident Saeima deputies will find a solution.
He also said the image of Russia in the minds of Russian-speaking residents in Latvia has changed since the start of the war in Ukraine. Kariņš attributes this to the banning of Russian television channels, which, according to him, allowed them to ‘leave the propaganda space’. Therefore Latvia’s PM believes the topic of the monument no longer splits society as much as it did before the war.
«Now things are all black or white. If you support Russia, it means you support the killing, raping of civilians in Ukraine.»
«If you don’t, this means you support values of freedom and democracy. I would say this excess of occupation is a reminder that has no place in our country,» said the prime minister.
Since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the discussion regarding the fate of the monument in Riga, Victory Park, has become very active in Latvia.
Saeima faction of the Conservative Party has even submitted a legislative draft to the parliament to move forward with the plan to demolish the monument, as confirmed by the faction’s leader Krišjānis Feldmans.
The objective is reaching a point at which the monument will be successfully demolished, stressed the politician. Moving the monument to some closed off and publicly inaccessible area was suggested by Feldmans as a possible solution.
The legislative draft suggests halting the function of Section 13 of the agreement between the government of the Russian Federation and the government of the Republic of Latvia on social protection of Russian Federation’s military pensioners and their family members and memorials and monuments in the territory of the Republic of Latvia.
If the legislative draft is passed, it is planned for the parliament to have relevant institutions restrict public access to the monument in Victory Park and other memorials listed in the agreement by 1 July 2022.
The annotation to the legislative draft mentions that it is intended to put a stop to the glorification of Soviet armed forces, remove the monument from Victory Park and other memorials and monument form their respective locations. This condition does not apply to memorials or monuments directly tied to burial sites.