Moscow decries ‘Russophobia’ as war monuments toppled

Russia condemned the destruction of Soviet war memorials in three Baltic states and accused them on Tuesday of persecuting their Russian-speaking minorities.

Moscow issued a statement accusing Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia of xenophobia, claiming they were treating their ethnic Russian minorities as “second-class people”. It said Russian-language media, kindergartens and schools were being shut down.

“What is happening now in the Baltic states is unacceptable for us and will certainly affect the state of bilateral relations with these countries, which are already in complete decline,” the foreign ministry said.

It complained of “Russophobic approaches” and “an unprecedented, in fact close to fascist, campaign by the authorities of the Baltic states to barbarically remove, en masse, memorials to the Soviet soldier-liberators”.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused the Baltic states on August 12 of a “neo-Nazi bacchanalia”.

The “neo-Nazi” charge is ominous because President Vladimir Putin used the same accusation to justify his February 24 invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine and the West dismissed that as a false pretext for a war of conquest.

The Baltic states were annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, then occupied by Nazi Germany before returning to Moscow control as part of the Soviet Communist bloc until they regained independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

All three are members of the EU and Nato, and their relations with Moscow have worsened sharply since the start of the war.

On August 25, Latvian authorities demolished an 80m edifice in Riga called the “Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders”. Latvia’s parliament approved the demolition in May, citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as the reason.

Estonia announced on August16 that it would begin removing Soviet-era monuments, citing public order concern.

Reuters