President of Latvia Vaira Vike-Freiberga will visit Russia on May 9 after all

Sunday, November 29, 2020

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President of Latvia Vaira Vike-Freiberga will visit Moscow on May 9 after all. But her colleagues from Estonia and Lithuania, Arnold Rüütel and Valdas Adamkus, have officially stated they will not attend the 60th anniversary of Victory over Nazism, writes Moskovsky Komsomolets. Experts tried to work out the possible consequences of this decision. Konstantin Zatulin, State Duma deputy: "The consequences will be scandalous. I am not sure the decision to refuse to come to Moscow was taken in the Baltic capitals and not in Washington. And one more important thing: Lithuania and Ukraine will stand to lose from a review of the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, because the pact granted them several Polish regions." Andrei Piontkovsky, director of the Center for Strategic Studies: "The Estonian president's refusal will protract out the signing of the border treaty. It is ready for signing but Russia is delaying putting pen to paper to use it as an instrument of pressure on Estonia. The president of Latvia, who will come to Moscow after all, will play a political game in a bid to ensure the early signing of a similar border treaty with the Kremlin. On the whole, nothing will change." Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the State Duma international affairs committee: "The consequences will not be terrible, but it is a shame that we are losing a historical chance to settle our common problems. Our relations will develop at a very slow pace." Baltic political scientists predict that Lithuania and Estonia will be pushed into isolation, and the EU and NATO will be hard put to understand their reasoning, as more than 50 countries have announced that they will celebrate VE-Day with the Russians. "Now Latvia alone will have to explain the position of the Baltic countries concerning the end of World War II," said Prime Minister of Latvia Aigars Kalvitis.

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