In eastern Latvia, NATO gets an icy reception from ethnic Russians as Canada eyes mission extension

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As Canada looks to extend its NATO mission in Latvia, some in this former Soviet republic say the military presence is unnecessary.

Lilija Lapshina, who was selling pickled cranberries and other preserves at a market in the city of Daugavpils, in the Latgale region in Latvia’s east, insisted her country doesn’t require Western help.

“It’s useless,” she said of the multinational NATO battle group that Canada has commanded since 2017 near Riga, Latvia’s capital. “Nobody is going to attack Latvia. We don’t need Canadian soldiers.”

Ms. Lapshina is not alone in this view. In Latgale, which borders both Russia and Belarus, there is significant ambivalence about the presence of foreign troops.

She is part of Latvia’s ethnic Russian minority, which makes up about a quarter of the country’s population and is heavily represented in Latgale. Some can trace their families in the area back to Tsarist Russia, while others have roots in the half century of Soviet occupation that ended in the 1990s.

Many have family connections in Russia and do not see Russian President Vladimir Putin as a menace. Russia lies just 120 kilometres to the northeast of Daugavpils.

Their views are relatively common in Latvia. A March, 2021, poll released by GlobeSec, a Slovakia-based think tank, found that while nearly 60 per cent of Latvians surveyed viewed Mr. Putin negatively, 31 per cent regarded him positively. The poll of 1,000 respondents was conducted by Latvian Facts.

Russia’s massive troop buildup near the Ukrainian border has stoked talk of invasion. Baltic State leaders such as Latvia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Artis Pabriks, fear their countries may be next if NATO cannot stop Mr. Putin from moving on Ukraine. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania only broke free of Moscow 30 years ago, when the Soviet Union collapsed. All three countries joined NATO in 2004.

“If Ukraine falls to Russia … then we are next in line. That is very clear,” Mr. Pabriks told the Globe and Mail last month.

But Andrey Smirnov, who runs a hardware store in central Daugavpils, said he’s not worried about Russia menacing Latvia. What he is concerned about is the Russian language fading in his region. In 2012, Latvian voters rejected making Russian their country’s second official language, and in recent years Riga has beefed up requirements that schooling and exams be conducted in Latvian.

Latvia represents Canada’s single biggest military deployment at the moment. By next summer, Canada will have commanded a 1,000-soldier battle group in the country for five years – a presence that includes up to 600 Canadians at a time as well as soldiers from nine other NATO countries. The Latvian deployment cost the Canadian government about $134-million during the 2020-21 fiscal year and is projected to cost $131-million this year, Department of National Defence spokesperson Daniel Le Bouthillier said.

Canada’s five-year commitment to lead the battle group in Latvia lasts until March, 2023, and Latvia has asked Ottawa to extend the deployment. The battle group is part of a broader NATO effort, started in 2017 as a check on further Russian aggression after Mr. Putin’s annexation of Crimea.

Dmitry Rybnikov, the deputy leader of a local non-government organization that claims to represent the Russian community in Daugavpils, said NATO’s footprint should be shrinking, not growing.

He agrees with Mr. Putin’s long-standing calls for NATO to withdraw from countries close to Russia. Since 1990, more than a dozen countries once affiliated with the Soviet Union have joined NATO – a development Moscow considers a threat to its security.

“NATO should move back its borders to the 1990s. There should be a gap zone between Russia and NATO,” Mr. Rybnikov said. He was speaking at a Russian cultural centre in Daugavpils where one wall is lined with photos of Soviet war medals, and another with portraits of Soviet-era officials, including Joseph Stalin.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s mandate letter for Anita Anand, who took over Canada’s defence portfolio in November, directs her to extend Operation Reassurance, which includes the Latvian troop deployment, as well as a frigate and CF-18s that join air policing duties over the Baltics with allies. Ms. Anand last week said she will be taking the matter to cabinet as Canada weighs increasing its military commitment on NATO’s eastern flank as a counter to Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine.

The GlobeSec poll found that 19 per cent of Latvians surveyed wanted to leave NATO, while 72 per cent wanted to remain.

Aleksej Vasiljev, the vice-mayor of Daugavpils, who is affiliated with the Russia-friendly party Latvian Russian Union, said his constituents are part of the NATO-must-go camp: “Latgalians are more afraid of NATO than Russia,” he said. He alleged that his region is ignored by Riga: “Our opinion doesn’t count.”

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Natalja Kozanova, a Daugavpils high-school teacher and a city councillor, said the vast majority in her city think Mr. Putin is a good leader. She said she believes Russia requires a strong government, and that, from what she sees on the news, “Putin is very strong and powerful.”

Ms. Kozanova, also the head of the Russian Culture Centre in Daugavpils, said she thinks the Latvian government in Riga is focusing on the threat from Russia in order to distract the population from “internal problems,” such as inflation, rising electricity prices and a low minimum wage compared to much of the European Union.

Andres Kasekamp, a professor of history at the University of Toronto who specializes in the Baltic Sea region, said he believes the steady diet of Russian media that Latvia’s Russian minority consumes plays a significant role in shaping their views. Latvian speakers and Russian speakers live in “two separate information spheres,” he said, with the latter deriving their news mainly from sources in Russia that are hostile to NATO and supportive of Mr. Putin.

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Prof. Kasekamp said the grievances of cities such as Daugavpils are not unlike those of populations on the peripheries of other countries. “Nostalgia for an idealized Soviet past does not equal desire to be part of the current Russia,” he said, adding that he believes the younger generation of Latvian Russians are more “Euro-Russian” in their outlook than their elders.

Polling conducted by SKDS in 2020 with Latvia-based Spektr.Press, a Russian-language media outlet, identified a generation gap between younger and older Latvian Russian speakers. The research found those aged 18 to 30 were less likely to report displeasure with European Union membership and more likely to be satisfied with their country’s membership in NATO.

Mr. Vasiljev said one point of agreement between Latvians of Russian ethnicity and the government in Riga is on the benefits of the labour mobility arising from membership in the European Union. “People can move freely for work,” he said.

But there is a downside. Mr. Rybnikov said working-age residents leave for jobs across the European Union and in North America and quite often do not return. This, he noted, has left Daugavpils unable to mount significant opposition against government policies in Riga.

“Only children and elderly people are left in Daugavpils, so they cannot make a protest,” he said.

Mr. Vasiljev said if he could speak to Mr. Trudeau he would tell him to keep Canadian troops home. People in his region do not support the presence of foreign troops, and they “do not consider Russia a threat to Latvia.”

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