Latest Articles about Latvia
16 + 1: China’s Push Into Central and Eastern Europe Loses Momentum
Introduction Since its inception in 2012, the Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries (China-CEEC; 中国—中东欧国家合作, Zhongguo—Zhong Dong Ou Guojia Hezuo), better known as the 16+1 or 17+1 initiative, has often been described as a security risk with the potential to divide European... MORE
Baltic States Bet on New LNG Regasification Capacities
On April 19, the Latvian Economy Minister Jānis Vitenbergs announced his government’s decision to support entirely abandoning natural gas supplies from Russia by the end of 2022 (Em.gov.lv, April 19). The strategy in that regard relies on expanding liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification capacity across... MORE
Kremlin’s War Against Ukraine Divides Russians in the Baltics
Ethnic Russians today compose around a quarter of the population of Estonia and Latvia and about 5 percent in Lithuania. For the most part, these communities are made up of the descendants of migrants to the Baltics after the Second World War, whom the Soviet... MORE
Moscow Mulling Wholesale Border Changes in Central Eastern Europe
The most compelling reason why the international community is opposed to any border change is the capacity of changes in one border to spark consideration of changes in others, creating or at least exacerbating problems in the relations between existing countries. Until Russian President Vladimir... MORE
Moscow Preparing for Possible Blockade of Kaliningrad
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow has worried about maintaining transportation links with its non-contiguous exclave of Kaliningrad. These worries intensified when the two countries cutting Kaliningrad off from the rest of the Russian Federation (and Moscow-aligned Belarus)—Poland and Lithuania—became members of... MORE
Non-Citizenship Issue in Baltic Countries Passing from the Scene
In the 1990s, the status of ethnic Russians who did not automatically become citizens in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was a lively topic—especially in Moscow, where policymakers hoped to use those communities as a pressure device or even a fifth column against these countries. With... MORE
Armored Troop Carrier Project to Link Baltic Sea Regional Partners
In late summer, Latvia and Finland officially agreed on a deal for Riga to purchase more than 200 armored personnel carriers (APC) developed by the Finnish company Patria as well as the transfer of technological “know-how,” so that some of the 6x6 wheeled platforms that... MORE
Baltic Security Assurances in Wake of NATO Summit and Biden-Putin Meeting
Amidst continuing tensions with Russia, the Baltic States—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—attached tremendous importance to achieving success at this year’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, held in Brussels, Belgium, on June 14. Significantly for the Baltics, United States President Joseph Biden scheduled a meeting with... MORE
Can Turkish Drones Bolster NATO’s Eastern Flank Against Russia?
Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are becoming popular strategic assets and affordable military modernization solutions on the international arms market. Following Azerbaijan’s dramatic achievements in the Second Karabakh War (September 27–November 9, 2020), whose forces employed advanced Turkish military technologies, including combat drones, Ankara has... MORE
Russians One Step Closer to Taking Over Handling of Belarusian Oil Product Exports?
On January 25, the government of the Russian Federation adopted a draft version of a bilateral agreement with Belarus on the diversion of some Belarusian refined oil product exports from the Baltic States’ transshipment terminals to Russian seaports (TASS, January 27). At first glance, the... MORE