Investigative Committee to check information about the theft of plates and letters from Soviet monuments in Latvia

Investigators of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation will give a legal assessment of the desecration of two monuments in Latvia, from which letters and memorial plates were stolen. About it reported in the press service of the RF IC.

In its statement, the Investigative Committee refers to the publications of Latvian residents in social networks, which published photographs of two desecrated monuments to Soviet heroes.

“So, in the Jelgava region, the letters of the words “Glory to the heroes” in Latvian and Russian were stolen from the memorial. And in Jurmala, 16 memorial plates were stolen from the burial place of Soviet soldiers, ”the ministry said.

Investigators intend to request information related to the incidents from the Russian Foreign Ministry and establish all the circumstances of the incidents.

In November, the Foreign Ministry summoned the Latvian ambassador to Moscow, Maris Riekstins, in connection with the dismantling of Soviet memorials. The agency also informed the ambassador of “illegal steps taken by the Latvian authorities” aimed at creating obstacles to the work of the Dom Moskvy cultural center in Riga and the Yantarny Bereg sanatorium in Jurmala with a view to the possible expropriation of this Russian property. After that, the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to UNESCO declared about the need to impartially respond to the demolition of monuments.

In early September, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would never be able to “understand and accept” the demolition of monuments to Soviet soldiers, and such steps that are being taken in European countries cause “heartache.” In the same month, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov said that Soviet military monuments dismantled in other countries will be restored on Russian territory. Then Bulgakov opened the restored monument to the T-34 tank in Ivangorod. The decision to erect a monument on the border with Narva, where on August 16 it was removed from the pedestal and sent to the museum, was made by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.