The Saeima of Latvia approved the statement "On Russia's targeted military attacks on civilians and public space in Ukraine."
The document says that Russian violence directed at civilians and carried out to achieve political goals is terrorism, and Russia itself is a state supporting terrorism. Latvia calls on "other like-minded countries" to express the same opinion.
67 parliamentarians voted for the adoption of the statement.
The document states that Latvia regards Russia's actions in Ukraine as a targeted genocide against the Ukrainian people. The statement said that due to an unprovoked military attack on Ukraine, 12 million Ukrainians were forced to leave their homes, more than 5 million - in their country. Since 2014, Russia has financially, politically, and militarily supported separatism and violence against civilians in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions and on the occupied island of Crimea. The statement mentions a deliberate Russian attack on Crimea, in which about 600 people were killed, rocket attacks on residential areas near Odessa, an attack on a shopping center in Kremenchuk, on a prison in Yelenovka.
The statement not only refers to Russia's actions in Ukraine but also points out that the Russian Federation is the largest supplier of weapons to the Assad regime in Syria, carried out terrorist attacks in sovereign countries, including the poisoning of the Skripal family in the UK and the destruction of the Malaysia Airline, which led to to the death of 298 people.
In the statement of the Saeima of Latvia:
- emphasizes that Russia is purposefully persecuting the Ukrainian civilian population, resorting to torture and violence to occupy Ukraine, demoralizing and paralyzing the ability to act of the armed forces and the people of Ukraine;
- recognizes Russia's violence against civilians to achieve political goals as terrorism and Russia as a state that supports terrorism, and calls on other like-minded countries to express this opinion;
- categorically condemns the military aggression of the Russian Federation and the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, carried out with the support and participation of the Belarusian regime;
- calls on the Euro-Atlantic community and its partners to immediately introduce and strengthen comprehensive sanctions against the Russian Federation to stop the military aggression of the Russian army in Ukraine, calls for increased military, financial, humanitarian and diplomatic support for Ukraine, and unanimously supports initiatives condemning Russia's military actions in Ukraine, and calls bring the perpetrators to justice, isolate Russia from international and regional organizations, as well as take equivalent decisions and impose equivalent sanctions against Belarus as a supporter of Russian military aggression;
- calls on the Member States of the European Union to immediately suspend tourist visas and limit the issuance of entry visas to citizens of the Russian Federation and Belarus;
- commemorates all the victims of Russian aggression in Ukraine - thousands of civilians and defenders of Ukraine;
- expresses solidarity with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.
