The MP and candidate for the European Parliament elections Edvīns Šnore (the National Alliance party) made a statement on a TikTok video claiming that thousands of "illegal immigrants" arrive in England by boat every day and that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has forbidden the country to "send them back to Africa". This is not true.
In the middle of the week, claims appeared on social media that under the influence of the Green Deal the government will ban the use of wood, pellets and briquettes for heating private homes. This is not true – there are no such plans. The false claims were spread on the internet by Tālis Linkaits, the former Minister for Transport and now a candidate for the European Parliament from the New Conservative Party (Jaunā konservatīvā partija), and a number of politicians from the Latvia First party (Latvija pirmajā vietā).
MEP Ždanoka's emails indicate that her assistant in the European Parliament was put forward by her contacts in Russia's security service.
Accused of working with the Russian security service, Latvian MEP Tatjana Ždanoka mockingly donned sunglasses at a press conference – as if in a spy movie. The accusations won’t be laughed off that easily: Re:Baltica has obtained almost 19,000 of Ždanoka's e-mails detailing how she served the Kremlin.
Next week the European Commission will propose a ban on manganese ore shipments to Russia, which can be used in the manufacture of arms. Before EU takes decision, Re:Baltica reports who are the main exporters, who will bear the brunt and why Latvian state companies are still in this business.
Re:Baltica for the first time publishes a list of the largest importers of Russian resources in Latvia since Russia's full-scale invasion in Ukraine. The main commodities are those shipment of which civil society protests against - grain, oil products and metal alloys.
While the government calls on businesses to “self-cleanse”, Latvia’s export to Russia has shrunk just a little bit after the two years of war. Re:Baltica names the largest exporters for the first time.
Latvia's social media users recently encountered an unprecedented attack of bots. During it thousands of accounts suddenly started to speak rudimentary Latvian and defend hockey players who had played tournament in Russia despite the ban. This was the first operation of such scale in one of the Baltic languages and has led to speculation that it could be a test-run before European Parliament elections.
The authorities have accused Temirov Live, a respected investigative outlet, of inciting mass unrest, and jailed nearly a dozen of its current and former employees. A palpable sense of fear has descended on this country, once known as the freest in the region.