Latvian foreign minister: "Ukraine can still win the war" | Conflict Zone

In Germany, Germany created the 100 billion euro defense fund, which is now being implemented. As Germany strengthens its armed forces, this is very, very good for all of NATO and this is what we need. So it's commitments and step-by-step realization. The difficulty and frustration I feel is that as we move forward step by step, Russia moves forward at full speed. And there is an imbalance between Russia's autocracy and NATO's democracy. And what we have to realize is that we have to move on to the next gear. We are in 2nd gear; We have to go into 4th and then 5th gear.

Ukraine can win this war. Russian propaganda... ...if given the tools to win it, about which it is justified to have doubts. Minister, there is a lot of talk about NATO's security guarantee to its members. But these are not absolute guarantees, right? That doesn't mean that NATO troops will immediately rush into battle against anyone who threatens a member country, right? How safe do you feel? How safe does Latvia feel with this famous Article 5 Treaty, on the books? We feel very safe. And what you have to remember is that in Latvia and the Baltic countries, that is, on the entire eastern flank, in theory, if an attack were to occur, NATO troops would not have to rush.

They are here, they are here. daily. It is physically impossible to attack... ...In very small quantities. In very small quantities. It is physically impossible to attack any of the Baltic countries without simultaneously attacking NATO soldiers from other countries. And that in itself is part of deterrence. And those numbers you say are small, but five years ago they were much smaller. So the numbers are actually increasing. And the Canadian government, which is leading NATO's efforts in Latvia, has also promised budget money, that is, very real money, to reach a full brigade. And you could say, well, it's a brigade, there are 10 brigades;

This is a question for the military. I am a politician. But the increase is very, very visible. ...So this Article 5 is a guarantee for all member states, right? I would ask if you think the United States, as a leading NATO nation, would go to war, say, for the sake of Albania, North Macedonia, or Slovenia. Look, you don't go to war for someone's sake. We are all together in the military alliance and that is our combined power. The combined power over 75 years where NATO has been working has deterred war. And that is its objective. NATO is not formed and is not functioning in Europe to fight a war.

NATO is there so that war never has to be fought. And the difficulty that Ukraine has is that it is not in NATO, it was not in NATO before the attack. And I think that's why Putin was speculating: since he's not in NATO, no one would help him. But look, we are even helping Ukraine although we have no formal obligation to do so. That is why the NATO alliance is a preventive alliance. He's not supposed to wage war, even though he's fully capable of doing so. He is supposed to prevent a war, which he has done for many years.

And now we have to increase our ability to stop the Russian war machine before the war becomes widespread and stop it in Ukraine. Well, yes, in an ideal world there will be no war. But in an ideal world, there would not be the war that we already have in Europe. You mentioned earlier President Macron's recent suggestion that France could possibly send troops to Ukraine, not on its own but as part of a multilateral deployment. Would Latvia, in principle, be willing to join that mission? These are very theoretical questions you are talking about. As for Macron's suggestion, I think the strength of this suggestion is that it begins to create strategic ambiguity for Russia.

And Macron is right. In NATO, in democracies, all the time we have drawn red lines, what we will not do, what we will not do, what we will not do - and we have forgotten it - forgetting the fact that Russia looks at this and says: Well, We can count that they will not do this, they will not do that, they will not do the third. Macron's suggestion actually creates a strategic ambiguity for Russia and in some ways blurs the red lines that we ourselves have drawn. So now the point is not to say what we will or won't do.

What we need to do in NATO is increase our spending, increase our defense industry. Let's do all this in a very visible and transparent way so that Putin sees that we are serious. President Macron also urged his allies not to be cowards. He said that "a time is coming in our Europe when it will be appropriate not to be cowards." Has NATO been cowardly? Have some countries been cowards? I would say not. NATO has shown no signs of being cowardly. NATO has proven otherwise. As pressure mounts, NATO ups its game. The only problem we have at hand is that we need to improve our game faster.

That's all that's at stake, that's all the discussion we need to have. Everything we are doing, we simply have to do it faster. I want to talk, if I may, in the time we have left about some of the responses that your government has given within Latvia to the war in Ukraine, in particular the decision to phase out the Russian language as one of the official languages ​​of their country in the media and in education, and check the loyalty of the Russian-speaking minorities, who represent almost 30% of its population. I wonder, Minister, how this could have been anything more than a deep division in his country.

Well, I have to correct some things you're saying. They are simply not true. For this reason, Russian has not been an official language in our country since we regained our independence. We have an official language: Latvian. We have a long-standing policy in our education system to ensure that all people living in Latvia, certainly all citizens, learn our national language so that we can communicate with them and that they have the same opportunities at work as any Latvian. So any country that makes sure that its citizens speak the national language, I think this is quite common in Europe and we are certainly no exception.

But would they be expelled if they don't know how to speak it? No... ...They risk being expelled if they can't speak it. No. Once again, this is simply not true. We have among our citizens a small minority of Russian citizens, people who are not Latvians, who have Russian citizenship and who reside permanently in Latvia. And of those Russian citizens, a proportion of them are people who used to have permanent residence status in Latvia or even a Latvian passport, which they gave up a few years ago for a Russian passport, but not to live in Russia, but to live. in Latvia.

And to this small subset of Russian citizens living in Latvia permanently, who used to have our citizenship or our permanent status, we ask: If you wish to continue residing in Latvia as Russian citizens, please, at least at a minimal level, learn our language. And it is not a crazy question, they are not, that has nothing to do with minorities. These are

foreign

citizens residing in Latvia and they are

foreign

citizens who renounced our status, our citizenship, for Russian citizenship. Last July, its own Central Statistics Office showed that all groups surveyed said that the attitude of Latvians towards the Russian-speaking population had changed for the worse and the majority of Russian-speaking families now believe that fascism was on the rise in the country.

That was not the case at the beginning of the war. That's not exactly the result you wanted, is it? I don't know what data you're basing it on. The data that was just presented to me by the government that we were analyzing is that as the war progresses, the proportion of, not taking into account the language that people speak at home, but the percentage of people who support Russia, has gone decreasing. I think it's around 6% or 7%. That means that 90%, 93%, and 94% don't actually support Russia, regardless of what language they speak. Therefore, there is a fairly common misconception about what people in Latvia think or do not think.

There are attempts - and this is a narrative that comes falsely from Russia about all the Russians living in Latvia. It is simply not the case. All young people in our country speak the national language. They are actually quite well integrated. There is no, there is no, how should we say, tensions in the street, there never has been. And it's simply a matter of what Russia is trying to convey to the world is that our country in a sense belongs to Russia. And this is simply a false narrative given by an imperialist power. And what we are saying is please come, come visit us, talk to people, look around, this is a fantastic country.

In fact, we feel quite good and safe here. And the attitude of the population to Russian aggression in Ukraine is quite visible. Russia has just held presidential elections and of the Russian citizens living in Latvia, approximately 2% participated in the elections. Only 2% of Russian citizens permanently residing in Latvia voted in the Russian presidential elections. I think this speaks volumes about the attitude of these people, and they are not ethnic minorities, they are Russian citizens residing here. Very well, Krišjānis Kariņš, we have to leave it there. Thank you very much for being in Conflict Zone. Thank you.

Thank you so much.