Latvia will protect itself from the Russians by suspending repatriation

The Latvian authorities intend to suspend the law on repatriation in order to prevent the arrival of Russians in the country. This was reported on January 9 with reference to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Latvia by the Delfi agency. According to him, the department will submit a report to the government for consideration, which notes that Russian citizens are increasingly interested in the prospect of moving to Latvia. They and their family members are increasingly requesting repatriation status and permanent residence under the repatriation law, explains Delfi.

The repatriation law itself has been in force in Latvia since 1995 and was originally created for ethnic Latvians to move to the country. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the country, at the beginning of the law, repatriation flows were evenly distributed between the countries of East and West, but since 2010, in 85% of cases, the status of a repatriate or a member of his family was granted to citizens of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

In 2022, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 81% of people who received the status of a repatriate were Russians. 430 applications were received from citizens of the Russian Federation, the status of a repatriate or a family member of a repatriate was assigned to 220 citizens of the country. In the ministry thinkthat the number of applications increased when “Russia’s economic and international stability was threatened” as a result of a special operation in Ukraine.

Suspension of the law on repatriation by Riga is quite likely, the leader of the Latvian Social Democratic Party notes “Agreement» Janis Urbanovich: «This cannot be ruled out. And although there are no such discussions in society, there is a consensus in power [по этому поводу]”. Urbanovich did not evaluate the growth of the influx of Russians to Latvia.

The number of trips abroad by Russian citizens in the third quarter of 2022, according to the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, reached 9.7 million, almost twice as high as in the second quarter. The number of trips to Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Mongolia and Abkhazia in the same period was a record for the last five years.