One of the biggest scandals of the week involved gifts received by Jūlija Stepaņenko, leader of the Sovereign Power party, from her father Sergei Fedotov, who lives in Russia and is described as a Putin supporter and supporter of the war. What is particularly notable, however, is that Stepaņenko declared a cash gift of 239,598.05 euros as early as 31 October 2022, while in January 2024 she received an apartment in Riga from her father valued at 180,000 euros. Why did the scandal and suspicions surrounding these gifts emerge only now? BNN asked Filips Rajevskis, political scientist and co-founder of Mediju tilts.
“To give credit where it is due, the Constitution Protection Bureau had already investigated this issue within the scope of its competence and informed the National Security Council and the country’s senior officials,” Rajevskis recalls, adding that the question is how the Latvian state views the situation in general.
“On the one hand, it is clear that a father can give something to his child – provide money, support the family and so on. Many people support their children’s families, and that is an area where the state should not interfere. Those are family relations,” Rajevskis says.
He stresses that the simplest tool available to change the nature of these relations in this particular case would have been sanctions.
“Suddenly, on 24 September, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs woke up, imposed sanctions on Stepaņenko’s father and placed him on Latvia’s list of undesirable persons. That, of course, is one way of stopping this flow of money into Latvia and separating the relationship between a father and his child from the relationship between a Russian citizen and a candidate for prime minister of Latvia.”
Asked why, in his view, Sergei Fedotov was only now declared persona non grata and banned from entering Latvia, given that a company under his control was already involved in producing anti-tank barriers in 2022, Rajevskis says the situation symbolically and precisely illustrates how Latvia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is responsible for sanctions, operates.
“They notice nothing until the media or X notices it. We saw the same thing with those two sanctioned individuals who were being removed from the sanctions list – the situation had been known two weeks earlier and was being discussed in Europe. Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs heroically got involved on the final day, when we were already starting to look like a complete laughing stock.”
“Thank God the prime minister stepped in and at least tried to sort the matter out. Hopefully, he resolved it in a way that serves Latvia’s interests. But the way the foreign affairs establishment operates demonstrates blatant inconsistency, incompetence and pure politicisation of the process, which is being used for the election campaign and has nothing to do with the duties and responsibilities entrusted to the foreign affairs establishment and Foreign Minister Baiba Braže personally,” Rajevskis says.
Why did the scandal surrounding the gifts from Stepaņenko’s father emerge now rather than two or four years ago?
Rajevskis explains that when Jūlija Stepaņenko finished her term in the 13th Saeima, there was a period of political inactivity while Sovereign Power was being created.
“At that point, it was simply a relationship between a daughter and her father, and that was all. When she returned to active politics, created Sovereign Power and began actively campaigning – running in the Riga City Council election while the political force itself contested elections in various municipalities – alarm bells should have started ringing: what is going on, and why is a Russian businessman financing the chair of a Latvian political party?”
“Moreover, this is a political party that could hardly be described as having a particularly strong commitment to defending Latvia’s interests. Rather, it is a political party affiliated with Russian political interests,” Rajevskis says.
The political scientist also recalls that after the 2022 Saeima election, the parties struggled for a long time to form a government, and, according to him, this period of political uncertainty was exploited.
“What do we see as a result? While a government is being formed, a coalition is being put together and everyone is talking loudly about it, money is quietly being moved and political forces are receiving support from the Russian side,” Rajevskis says.
BNN noted that regardless of the level of support for Sovereign Power/Young Latvians, the alliance would not become part of the governing coalition. Rajevskis responded:
“They will not be in the coalition, but representation in parliament is also a very significant and serious matter that should not be underestimated. We should remember that Latvia has been represented in the European Parliament by MPs who travelled to all sorts of highly marginal and strange places while representing Latvia.”
“Every MP who has received a mandate from the people can represent Latvia in one way or another. And the mandate that Sovereign Power receives in the election will most likely be used not to represent Latvia’s interests, but under the Latvian flag.”