To Strip Citizenship, Support Ukraine, Praise Trump. What Will the Saeima Discuss Tomorrow? 0 6

Tomorrow's session of the Saeima will begin with the consideration of another statement by the Latvian parliament on an international topic. This time, the statement prepared by the Saeima Foreign Affairs Committee is dedicated to the fourth anniversary of the full-scale war in Ukraine. The draft statement, which is sure to be adopted, states, in particular, that "the rhetoric and targeted brutal actions of Russia aimed at the destruction of the Ukrainian people constitute genocide, and Russia's military aggression has led to the most severe humanitarian catastrophe in Europe since World War II; Russia's ability to continue its aggression and war crimes indicates insufficient international pressure on the aggressor country and the need to increase military, financial, and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine;

The draft statement highly appreciates the "contribution of the United States of America and its President Donald Trump to the efforts to end the war of Russian aggression in Ukraine and supports the approach of 'peace through strength' as an effective way to stop Russian aggression;

The Saeima notes that "Ukraine sincerely wants to end hostilities and actively participates in peace negotiations to achieve a fair agreement, however, Russia sabotages peace initiatives with disinformation, new unacceptable ultimatums, and increased attacks on the civilian population and energy infrastructure of Ukraine and is responsible for the continuation of the war;

The statement emphasizes that support for Ukraine is a strategic necessity, as Ukraine is an integral part of European values and security architecture. Latvia, as a member state of the European Union and NATO, highly values the intention of the coalition of goodwill to provide Ukraine with strong, politically and legally binding security guarantees as an integral part of any peace agreement;

Latvian parliamentarians emphasize that Latvia "will never recognize the inclusion of currently occupied territories of Ukraine into the Russian Federation. The occupied and illegally annexed Ukrainian territories — the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as parts of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia — belong to the sovereign and territorially indivisible Ukrainian state; supports an effective long-term strategy of the European Union and NATO countries to achieve an end to Russian aggression and to conclude peace in a way that would ensure the strategic defeat of Russia and prevent it from restoring its military capabilities; approves the decisions of the EU countries to freeze the assets of the Central Bank of Russia indefinitely and to provide a loan of 90 billion euros for Ukraine's current financial needs;

The Saeima will also need to decide at tomorrow's plenary session whether to consider the draft resolution prepared by the "Latvia First" faction on stripping Andrei Mamykina of Latvian citizenship. The basis is the statements of the former Latvian journalist who moved to Russia on the channel "Russia 1". Mamykina, speaking in a discussion on Solovyov's talk show, called for bombing Latvia with "Oreshnik". According to the deputies of "Latvia First", Mamykina deserves to be stripped of Latvian citizenship for such statements. However, taking into account international law and other regulations, the authors of the draft resolution urge the government to resolve the legal issues of possibly stripping Mamykina of citizenship. The nuance is that a person cannot be stripped of citizenship if they do not have another citizenship.

The Saeima will also consider two requests — from "Latvia First" and from the United List — on the same topic: regarding construction problems and the sharp rise in the cost of building the new Stradins Hospital wing. It should be noted that the construction project has nearly doubled in cost over the years, and there is also a risk that the new building will not be completed on time, which means there is a risk of losing EU funding! The opposition believes that the Minister of Health, Hosam Abu Meri, should bear political responsibility for this.