Russian-speakers in Latvia protest Russian invasion of Ukraine

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MADRID, 24 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –

Several hundred people belonging to the Russian community in Latvia have gathered this Saturday in the center of the Latvian capital, Riga, to protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Many of those attending the rally, which was held at the Freedom Monument in central Riga, have carried Ukrainian banners and flags, demanding an immediate end to the war.

Ethnic Russians, who make up the largest minority group in Latvia, have gathered for the event with the intention of showing that Russian-speakers in Latvia did not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or the Russian government, event organizers have detailed. .

“It is important that Latvian Russian-speakers demonstrate this position by strongly opposing the Putin regime,” civil activist Martins Levukans and lawyer Dmitrijs Trofimovs stressed in statements to national television radio (LSM).

“There is no language for this war, and Ukraine is fighting for Europe, the Baltics, Poland and Finland. If Ukraine falls, we will be the next to have to sit in cellars every night and hide from bombs and flee to the land where rapes and murders will take place, and there will be death because Putin’s Army is carrying out death,” pianist Andrei Osokin said, according to LSM.

During the demonstration, the victims of the war in Ukraine have also been commemorated in a minute of silence in front of the Freedom Monument in honor of the soldiers who died during the Latvian War of Independence.