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Home
Archive
    Important
    Baltic Drug Couriers
    Dirty Money
    China's influence
    Energetics
    Fake News
    Health in Latvia
    I Spy
    Imprisoned in the Baltics
    Latvia's ageing dilemma
    Latvia's Golden Visas
    Money from Russia
    Press Intimidation in the Baltic States
    Russia and Family Values
    Small Wages
    The Baltic Media After the Crisis
    The Other Side of Latvia’s ‘Success’ Story
    Unequal Education
    Uzbeks in Latvia
    #Vēlēšanas2018
About us
Support us
Re:Baltica - The Baltic Center for Investigative Journalism
  • Home
  • Archive
    • Important
    • Baltic Drug Couriers
    • Dirty Money
    • China’s influence
    • Energetics
    • Fake News
    • Health in Latvia
    • I Spy
    • Imprisoned in the Baltics
    • Latvia’s ageing dilemma
    • Latvia’s Golden Visas
    • Money from Russia
    • Press Intimidation in the Baltic States
    • Russia and Family Values
    • Small Wages
    • The Baltic Media After the Crisis
    • The Other Side of Latvia’s ‘Success’ Story
    • Unequal Education
    • Uzbeks in Latvia
    • #Vēlēšanas2018
  • About us
  • Support us
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Important

Does Facebook Censor Posts in Support of Ukraine?

7. March, 2023Inga Spriņģe, Re:Baltica

Many people in Latvia believe so, but Re:Baltica found no evidence that content moderators on Facebook would consciously delete posts showing support for Ukraine. But there is another problem—its content policies are designed in a way that it is practically impossible to express negative emotion when speaking about the war. The Kremlin only benefits from this. 

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INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM NEEDS INDEPENDENT FINANCING

Investigative journalism is not an expensive hobby. It is a trade: often lonely, sometimes brave, full-time job which requires both time and money. It is expensive and thus become the first victim when traditional media face crisis. But without it we cannot understand the world around us and held the powers responsible.

We do it as a non-profit organisation which raises money itself and gives investigations to traditional media and publishes them online for free access.

We as editors are the only ones who decide what we are going to investigate because we - and not the advertisers or owners - think it is important topic for the Baltic societies. Thus we can investigate social inequality, corruption, abuses of power or money laundering.

We look for grants and earn ourselves via teaching, moderating events and researching scripts for films. But it takes away time we need for doing journalism.
Therefore we need you to donate and become part of Re:Baltica's community!

Now you can also donate through Mobilly!

Important

A Year of War. The Deniers, the Agitators, the Glorifiers—Who are They?

23. February, 2023Inese Liepiņa, Sanita Jemberga, Re:Baltica

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Latvian security services  have opened more than 40 criminal probes for incitement of hate, undermining the interests of Latvia, violations of EU sanctions and other crimes, including ones that don’t have legal precedent. Some of the cases are dangerously close to restricting free speech

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Important

Is TikTok a Gateway to Politics in the Baltics? For Now, Only in Latvia

16. February, 2023Inga Spriņģe (Re:Baltica), Aistė Meidutė (Delfi.lt) and Kaili Malts (Delfi.ee)

Latvia is the first of the Baltic states where a TikTok party has been elected to parliament. Before the elections, their star was an unemployed young woman with a high-school diploma, but her videos had received millions of likes. Even though the number of TikTok users is fairly similar in all of the Baltic states, in Latvia the platform is used by populist politicians spreading Kremlin-friendly messages. It doesn’t play a role in politics in Estonia and Lithuania yet.

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Important

Disinformation on TikTok: Latvian police open criminal probes, while the police in Estonia ask to delete

16. February, 2023Inga Spriņģe (Re:Baltica), Aistė Meidutė (Delfi.lt) and Kaili Malts (Delfi.ee)

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Latvian State Security Service has started seven criminal investigations for supporting Moscow on TikTok or using the platform to spread ethnic hatred. Who are the voices from the Baltics that mirror Kremlin narratives there? And why is Lithuania and Estonia taking it easier?

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Sanctions

Traders Are Sneaking Banned Russian and Belarusian Wood Into the EU By Pretending It’s From Central Asia

25. January, 2023Sarunas Cerniauskas (Siena/OCCRP), Olga Ratmirova (BIC), Kseniya Viaznikoutsava (BIC), Ales Yarashevich (BIC), and Julia Dauksza (Frontstory.pl)

Not long after imposing sanctions on wood imports from Russia and Belarus, Europe saw an influx of wood supposedly coming from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Authorities say sanctions-busters are increasingly mislabeling wood as Central Asian so they can keep bringing it in to the EU.

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Latvia's Golden Visas, Money from Russia

Who are the people from Putin’s inner circle with properties in Latvia?

20. March, 2022Sanita Jemberga, Re:Baltica

Re:Baltica is part of an international group of 80 journalists from 27 media outlets who are gathering new information on the assets of sanctioned Russian billionaires, servants and propagandists in Europe, USA, and elsewhere after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In few weeks, we found over 145 properties – villas, flats, yachts, private planes – worth over 17 billions US dollars. The Usmanov, Tokarev and Mazepin families own property in Latvia, but some of them won’t be touched until the sanctions are extended to the family members of Putin’s inner circle. 

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Belarus sanctions

Lithuanian Kings of Belarussian Potash

3. February, 2022Šarūnas Černiauskas (Siena.lt), Alexander Yaroshevich (Belarusian Investigative Center) and Miglė Krancevičiūtė (Siena.lt)

On Jan 31, 2022, the last trains carrying sanctioned Belarussian potash fertilizers were supposed to cross Lithuanian territory. 

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The Baltic Media After the Crisis

Court finds Baltic-Russian media tycoon guilty for breaching sanctions against Russia

4. February, 2022Sanita Jemberga, Re:Baltica, Holger Roonemaa (Delfi Estonia)

The regional court in Riga has found the owner of the Baltic – Russian media powerhouse and his Estonian side-kick guilty of breaching EU sanctions against Russia and fined over three million euros in the biggest criminal case of this kind the Baltic country has seen so far.

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Belarus sanctions

Behind the Sanctions: How an Estonian-Latvian Conglomerate Benefits from Record Trade with the Lukashenko Regime

30. January, 2022Holger Roonemaa (Delfi), Sanita Jemberga (Re:Baltica), Alexander Yaroshevich (Belarusian Investigative Center), Raimo Poom (Delfi)

Despite harsh EU sanctions, Belarussian oil exports to Estonia reached record levels in 2021. Here’s how the trade, initiated by the oligarch nicknamed the ”energy wallet of Lukashenko”, has been set up.

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Disinformation

Who are the main disinformation spreaders in Latvia and how do they support themselves?

9. December, 2021Re:Baltica

The events organised by anti-vaxxers and Covid-19 restriction deniers, begs the question – who is paying for all of this? Until now it has been hard to find sources of organised, external funding so Re:Baltica looked into the main disinformation spreaders and the way that they live. 

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Fake News, Important

“You will collect your teeth with broken fingers”. Why haters are getting away with online abuse

8. September, 2021Daiva Repečkaite, Vita Dreijere and Martin Laine, for Re:Baltica

The pandemic has escalated online harassment, especially aimed at journalists and healthcare workers. Yet in all three Baltic countries police don’t consider even publicly shared death threats as real enough, therefore action against perpetrators rarely follows. 

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Covid-19

Give them a fine – or hand them a mask?

19. May, 2021Inga Springe (Re:Baltica), Daiva Repečkaite, Eva von Schaper (The Inoculation)

Latvia is the first of the Baltic States that has convicted a person who spreads fake news – he has been found guilty of hooliganism and incitement to hatred on social media. Meanwhile, Estonia and Lithuania are relying on educating society rather than handing out criminal penalties. 

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Dirty Money, Important

Investigators fail to prove ex-chief of Latvian Bank demanded bribe from ABLV

5. May, 2021Sanita Jemberga, Re:Baltica

Work visits to the U.S. described as “fuckery”, promises to “fix things” in the banking sector, disclosure of confidential information in a sauna and false testimony: a dropped case lifts the veil on how the former governor of the Bank of Latvia operated.

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Re:Check

Who spreads the vaccine lies in the Baltics?

28. February, 2021Re:Baltica

Until relatively recently, journalists generally considered the anti-vaccination movement to consist primarily of misguided new mothers. During the Covid-19 pandemic, this view has changed dramatically. Misinformation on vaccines is now being spread on social media by healthy living evangelists and other profiteers, people seeking to grow their political capital, and fans of Kremlin propaganda. 

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Important

The payday loan millionaire

4. February, 2021Inga Spriņģe, Re:Baltica

Profit of the payday loans made Aigars Kesenfelds millionaire and gave him a chance to spread wings internationally. The turnover of his businesses now approaches 400 million euros a year. However, the plain sailing has run into difficulties in Kosovo and Armenia due to “abnormal superprofits”, and the companies related to him have lost licences. For this story, the least known Latvian millionaire is forced to leave the shadows and answer unpleasant questions.   

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The Baltic Media After the Crisis

PBK Baltic owner enters plea bargain in EU sanctions case

25. January, 2021Sanita Jemberga, Re:Baltica

The case for the alleged breach of EU sanctions against Russia by the owner of the Baltic media-powerhouse which distributes popular Russia’s TV channels may end up being heard in court behind closed doors.

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Important

RB Rail supervisory board gives up pay rise: but only after media interest

16. December, 2020Inese Liepiņa, Re:Baltica

At a time when many people have lost their incomes due to Covid – 19 pandemic, the supervisory board of the enterprise responsible for building Rail Baltica had quietly envisaged to raise their salaries by 15 percent or 400 euros as of January next year. They gave up the idea only after journalists from Re:Baltica started to question the decision.

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Important

Gun in your face: Leaders of Latvia’s conspiracy community radicalize the country’s population

19. November, 2020Inga Spriņģe, Re:Baltica

When in March of this year Re:Baltica’s Re:Check became official Facebook (FB) fact checkers and labeled the first false information, the main conspiracy theory propagators in Latvia were enraged.

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Dirty Money

Inside scandal-rocked Danske Estonia and the shell-company ‘factories’ that served it

21. September, 2020Simon Bowers, Karrie Kehoe, Holger Roonemaa, ICIJ

This story is written by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which organized the FinCEN Files global investigation into the world of banks and money laundering and of which Re:Baltica is part.


  • How a handful of secretive agencies mass-produce UK shell companies quietly owned by criminals and launders from former Soviet states.
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Dirty Money

Global banks defy U.S. crackdowns by serving oligarchs, criminals and terrorists

21. September, 2020ICIJ

This story is written by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which organized the FinCEN Files global investigation into the world of banks and money laundering and of which Re:Baltica is part.


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Dirty Money

Unchecked by global banks, dirty cash destroys dreams and lives

21. September, 2020Will Fitzgibbon, ICIJ

This story is written by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which organized the FinCEN Files global investigation into the world of banks and money laundering and of which Re:Baltica is part.


From Ukraine to the United States, from Tunisia to Turkmenistan, a global ICIJ investigation details the punishing human cost of laundered trillions.

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Dirty Money

What the FinCEN Files reveal about Latvia?

20. September, 2020Inga Spriņģe, Aija Krūtaine, Re:Baltica/ICIJ

The leaked suspicious activity reports written by the US based banks to the country’s financial crime investigators reveal that Latvia was considered a high-risk jurisdiction for years.

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Dirty Money

Crime and Punishment. How Latvia Cleaned Up it’s Non-Resident Banks

20. September, 2020Inga Spriņģe, Aija Krūtaine, Re:Baltica/ICIJ

2005 –  FinCEN warns Latvia about the increased risk of Latvian banking sector being used for money laundering and expresses special concerns regarding two of 23 Latvian banks. U.S. financial institutions were prohibited from opening or maintaining correspondent accounts at one of them – VEF Bank.

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Dirty Money

Ukraine’s Powerful Who Shuffled Money Through Latvia

20. September, 2020Inga Spriņģe, Aija Krūtaine, Re:Baltica/ICIJ

The FinCEN Files provide a glimpse of the Latvian banks used by the ousted Ukraine’s president Yanukovych, his associates and adversaries.

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Dirty Money

The Unknown Bank Which Serviced One of the World’s Richest Men

20. September, 2020Inga Spriņģe, Aija Krūtaine, Re:Baltica/ICIJ

Russian aluminium tycoon Deripaska (52) moved more than $3 billion of suspicious origin through a small Latvian bank. 

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The Baltic Media After the Crisis

Checkmate: will the biggest Baltic Russian media house survive the storm

26. March, 2020Inga Spriņģe (Re:Baltica), Holger Roonemaa (Delfi/Eesti Paevaleht)

An alleged breach of EU sanctions, and a possible fine of up to 10 million euros, casts doubt on the future of Baltic Media Alliance, one of the largest media holdings in the Baltic countries focusing on local Russian-speaking audiences.

Read more

Re:Check

Re:Check becomes Facebook’s official fact checking partner

25. March, 2020Re:Baltica

Re:Baltica’s fact-checking and social media research lab Re: Check today became Facebook’s official fact-checking partner.

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Domestic Violence

“First I’ll stab that cripple, then you and then I’ll hang myself”

11. March, 2020Sanita Jemberga, Re:Baltica

In Latvia, every third woman convicted of murder has killed her partner, who had been abusing her. Why judges mostly don’t consider a history of violence as a mitigating circumstance?

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Domestic Violence

The Woman with the Cut Off Ear

28. February, 2020Inga Spriņģe, Re:Baltica

Last March, Santa’s former partner cut off her ear. Afterwards, he calmly walked out of her apartment, taking the ear with him, and went to the police. On the way, he threw the ear away but didn’t tell the police where. As a result, the 12 hours during which it could have been reattached were lost.

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China's influence

Huawei’s Backdoor in Estonia: Ex-Ministers Hired for Last Minute Lobby Efforts

16. February, 2020Holger Ronemaa, Delfi

Battling to stay in the competition for building Estonia’s 5G network, the tech giant Huawei has hired a lobby firm with three ex-ministers on board in an attempt to use their political influence and push back the decision to exclude the Chinese company due to security concerns.

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Important

(De)Rail Baltica: Why the Baltic High Speed Train is Running Off Rails

5. February, 2020Inese Liepiņa (Re:Baltica), Holger Roonemaa and Martin Laine (Delfi), Šarūnas Černiauskas (Siena.lt)

When the Baltic prime ministers meet in Tallinn this Friday, they need to agree how to speed up building of Rail Baltica as deadlines are being missed and costs are rising. Latvia and Estonia are blaming Lithuania for stalling the project, while it digs its heels defending own interests

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Important

The Other Side of The Railroad

5. February, 2020Inese Liepiņa (Re:Baltica), Holger Roonemaa and Martin Laine (Delfi), Šarūnas Černiauskas (Siena.lt)

The land expropriation is an essential part of the high-speed train line Rail Baltica (RB), but Latvia and Estonia lag behind the schedule. It is another risk for timely finish of the project

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Important

Who Is Afraid Of Rail Baltica?

5. February, 2020Inese Liepiņa (Re:Baltica), Holger Roonemaa and Martin Laine (Delfi), Šarūnas Černiauskas (Siena.lt)

The opposition to the Baltic high-speed railway line is the loudest and most political in Estonia, while in Latvia and Lithuania it is mostly desperate landowners.

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Important

Azov Movement’s Race War Plans Find Sympathetic Audience in Latvian Government Party

13. December, 2019Leonid Ragozin, Sanita Jemberga, Re:Baltica

The future of Europe, as per Raivis Zeltits, the secretary-general of the National Alliance (NA), a Latvian government coalition party, looks like this. First, the EU will dissolve into several regional blocs while retaining formal unity. Latvia will find itself in a bloc called Intermarium, which will stretch from Crimean beaches to the Gulf of Riga.

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Important

Why did we write this

13. December, 2019Leonīds Ragozins, special for Re:Baltica

This article continues our series dedicated to Latvia’s security in the light of Russian aggression in Ukraine, the beginning I which I witnessed in Slaviansk, Donetsk and Kharkiv, while working for US media. In our previous piece, we explored a group of athletes turned politicians, which reminded of organisations that were involved in pro-Russian separatist uprising in southeastern Ukraine. That story also revealed a possible conflict of interest in how Riga mayor’s office led by Nils Ushakov funded public organisations.

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China's influence

The Golden Handcuffs of Chinese Investment

5. September, 2019Naglis Navakas (Verslo Žinios), Holger Roonemaa and Mari Eesmaa (Postimees), Inese Liepiņa (Re:Baltica)

China’s investments in the Baltic countries are so far insignificant, but the Chinese have their eyes on large strategic infrastructure projects, developments that are simultaneously tempting and worrying to the Baltics.

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China's influence

Weaving 5G Networks Amid Superpowers’ Battle

2. September, 2019Holger Roonemaa and Mari Eesmaa (Postimees), Inese Liepiņa and Sabīne Bērziņa (Re:Baltica), Naglis Navakas (Verslo Žinios)

Squeezed between geopolitics and wary of Chinese espionage threats, the Baltic countries look to Brussels for guidance on what to do with Huawei and their 5G networks

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China's influence

Why We Wrote This

3. September, 2019Sanita Jemberga, the editor of series, Re:Baltica

The rise of Chinese influence in the world – and its consequences – has been one of the main topics in international relations in recent years. The US trade war, Europe’s attempt to create a common policy against China’s attempts to establish special relations with groups within the EU, China’s massive investment program for building infrastructure to create new trade routes – it all applies to us, too.

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China's influence

The Rough Face of China’s Soft Power

2. September, 2019Inese Liepiņa, Sabīne Bērziņa (Re:Baltica), Holger Roonemaa, Mari Eesmaa (Postimees), Naglis Navakas (Verslo Žinios)

The objectives of China’s soft power in the Baltic states are to prevent the rise of uncomfortable foreign policy issues like autonomy for Tibet and to disseminate Beijing’s worldview through Confucius Institutes.

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Dirty Money

Mega-donor to pro-Russian party benefits from Magnitsky and Azerbaijani laundromats

20. March, 2019Inga Spriņģe, Re:Baltica, Karina Shedrofsky, Investigative Dashboard/OCCRP

A major donor of Latvia’s biggest pro-Russian party Harmony has received payments from offshore companies used in the Magnitsky affair and the Azerbaijani laundromat, but says he cannot remember a thing about it.

Read more
Dirty Money

In the shadows of ABLV: from regulator to a friend

13. March, 2019Sanita Jemberga, Re:Baltica

After almost a year of haggling Latvia’s financial sector supervisors have finally agreed how they will probe cleanliness of funds at ABLV, the bank which is about to be wound up following allegations of institutionalized money laundering. This process has gathered dark clouds on the horizon for Pēters Putniņš, Latvia’s chief financial supervisor.

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Unequal Education

Latvian education reform: why Russian parents are afraid to talk

17. December, 2018Inga Spriņģe, Sanita Jemberga, Re:Baltica

This was the most difficult investigation in the 8-year history of Re:Baltica.

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Important

Ušakovs and Gobzems fail to bring criminal defamation proceedings against Re:Baltica

3. February, 2019Re:Baltica

The mayor of Latvian capital, Nils Ušakovs, and one of the party’s KPV.LV leaders, Aldis Gobzems, have failed in their efforts to bring criminal proceedings for defamation against the journalists of Re:Baltica.

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I Spy

The tasks for the Russian spy: report on tanks, towers and underwear

14. December, 2018Inga Spriņģe, Re:Baltica

Yuri Stilve, who has been convicted of spying for Russia, was ordered to take pictures of petroleum product warehouses and a communications tower on the border, and to find out what kind of underwear Latvian soldiers wear.

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I Spy

The Spy Russia Forgot

10. October, 2018Holger Roonemaa, Re:Baltica/Postimees

A 20-year-old information technology (IT) student was recruited by Russia to spy against Estonia, but kicked to the curb when he got caught. From behind bars, he tells his tale to Re:Baltica.

Read more
Fake News, Money from Russia

Moscow’s Mouthpieces

29. August, 2018Holger Roonemaa (Postimees), Inga Spriņģe (Re:Baltica)

Skype logs and other documents obtained by Re:Baltica, Postimees and Buzzfeed offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine.

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I Spy

The Hunter Becomes the Prey: Confessions of a Russian Spy

5. December, 2018Dovydas Pancerovas, 15min.lt/Re:Baltica

It was supposed to be just another winter hunt for Sergejus Pusinas (35), a captain in the Lithuanian Air Force. Then a red light flashing in a fellow hunter’s pocket caught his eye. It triggered a series of events that finally led him to the point of no return.

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INVESTIGATIONS

#Vēlēšanas2018 Baltic Drug Couriers Belarus sanctions China's influence Covid-19 Dirty Money Disinformation Domestic Violence Energetics Fake News Health in Latvia Important Imprisoned in the Baltics I Spy Latvia's ageing dilemma Latvia's Golden Visas Money from Russia Press Intimidation in the Baltic States Re:Check Russia and Family Values Sanctions Small Wages The Baltic Media After the Crisis The Other Side of Latvia’s ‘Success’ Story Unequal Education Uzbeks in Latvia

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