By Tatjana Ždanoka
former Latvian MEP (2004-2024)
Brussels, 3 April 2026
At a time when the world’s media is focused entirely on events in the Persian Gulf, news suddenly broke from another narrow, long Gulf – this one on a different continent: the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea.
On March 25, 27, 29 and 31 this year, Ukrainian drones struck terminals and refineries of the ports Ust-Luga and Primorsk, situated nearby St. Petersburg, contributing to reductions in Russia’s oil export capacity.
Ukrainian officials make no secret of the fact that the aim of the operation was to deprive Russia of windfalls from soaring oil prices.
But was this the only important consequence of these drone attacks? Doubts about this arose after reports emerged when, during the same period in late March, unmanned aerial vehicles crashed and exploded in the territory of three Baltic countries: one in Lithuania, another in Latvia, and a third in Estonia. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister stated without delay that drones were “deliberately diverted by Russia to the Baltic States to exploit the incidents for its propaganda purposes”. After a long silence, the authorities of all three Baltic states announced that these were the Ukrainian drones that “had gone astray” in an operation against targets in Russia. Consequently, the spokesperson for the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had no choice but to muster “an apology to our friends, the Baltic states, for the incidents” in a statement to the Lithuanian news portal www.delfi.lt.
Still the question remains: if these drones “had gone astray”, what was their intended route? Let’s look closely at the map with the red marker dots indicating the locations where Ukrainian drones have crashed. You don’t have to be a military expert to realize that the route was planned to bypass Russian territory and was presumably as follows. Drones were launched from western Ukraine, enter Polish airspace and fly strictly north along the Polish-Belarussian border. They then entered Lithuanian airspace unimpeded and continue along the Lithuanian-Belarussian border. Next, they head to Latvia, literally skimming its eastern border with the Pskov district of Russia. They then continued along the Estonian border with Russia. Having flown all this way across the entire Baltic region, under the watch of NATO monitoring systems, they enter the Gulf of Finland. At this point, just a few kilometres away from critical Russian facilities, they’re hard to knock down.
This is a good place to raise a few key questions. Was the use of Baltic territory for Ukrainian drones coordinated with the Baltic authorities? What might be the consequences of using NATO territory to attack targets in Russia?
Judging by the very limited coverage of the issue in both Russian and Baltic public media, it seems that no one wants to fall for the provocation.
But no one can be immune to the dangerous consequences of potential provocations in the future. We are already seeing the signs of a divergence in the positions of top officials in the Baltic states.
On the one hand, Lithuanian prime minister Inga Ruginienė is making reassuring statements concerning a drone crashed in a lake in southern Lithuania: “Let us stop listening to various rumours, let us listen to what the services are saying. Our services have stated very clearly about the incident. The drone went off course by accident and this information is accurate” (see www.delfi.lt ).
On the other hand, the same services in neighbouring Latvia have been deliberately intimidating people both in the West and in Latvia itself. Recently, people were shocked by the phrase “they will kill us all” in an interview given by the head of Latvia’s security service (VDD) Normunds Mežviets, with the British “The Telegraph” (www.telegraph.co.uk ) in March 18 this year. The full sentence is as follows: “I understand very well that if Russians come here for the third time, it won’t just be the end of our statehood, Latvia as a country, our sovereignty, it will be the end of Latvian ethnicity … they will kill us all”.
I wouldn’t be so quick to agree with the suggestion that the long-time (since 2014) Director General of the VDD suddenly developed paranoia. In my view, this phenomenon pertains not to medicine, but to social psychology and ethics. The widespread practice of punishing the innocent, as carried out by the VDD, amounts to an attempt to dehumanize the victim. Mr. Mežviets justifies the unjust violence perpetrated by the agency he heads by arguing that the same thing could happen to him tomorrow.
The Latvian VDD is actively initiating politically motivated proceedings against persons whose position does not coincide with that of the authorities. The majority of such cases are initiated under far-fetched pretexts of assistance to Russia in its activities. The legal ground for these cases relates to two chapters of the Criminal Law: Crimes against Humanity and Peace, War Crimes and Genocide; Crimes against the State.
In 2025, the VDD referred to the Prosecution Office a total of 41 criminal cases, asking to initiate criminal prosecution against 58 persons in total. This represents a sharp increase compared to the previous year, when the corresponding figures were 21 and 22 respectively.
Rigorous proceedings involving lengthy pre-trial detention are conducted and real prison sentences for non-violent actions are imposed.
Here are two of many stories telling how deliberately absurd the charges are. In December 2025, two members of my party “Latvian Russian Union” were arrested. Both are held in pre-trial detention. A 68-year-old Doctor of history Viktors Guščins is being charged over a human rights-related publication on the website “Rhythm of Eurasia” ( www.ritmeurasia.ru ) from three years ago. The basis of the charge is a violation of EU sanctions. 39-year-old Polina Kamļova, public activist, is on trial under the section of the Criminal Law concerning the financing of armed conflict. She is accused for responding to a request for financial resources for the purchase of radio-electronic equipment for the Russian army. The amount of the donation was 43 euros.
The Baltic countries are very small. But it is a big mistake to ignore what happens there. Rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators and rewriting the history of WWII, segregation of society, forced assimilation of minorities, flourishing Russophobia, – all these viruses have been spread from there.
Take a look at a map of the region, and you will see just how vulnerable the three Baltic states are to various kinds of external provocations. There is a well-known saying: “Geography is destiny.” It is attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, whose tragic campaign through the Baltic lands toward Moscow should serve as a lesson to all who feel a sense of responsibility for Europe’s fate today.
In closing, I would like to quote from my intervention at an international conference which took place in Grece in 2015 and served as the impetus for the “Delphi Initiative.”
“In my opinion, the European Union could be a strong geopolitical player on the basis of its strategic partnership with Russia only. The role of my country, Latvia, with its large Russian-speaking population, could be extremely important, building bridges between the EU and Russia. This is because we are the ones who know Russia best as a part of our own identity. Unfortunately, the role played by the Baltic states, and Latvia in particular, up to now has been quite the opposite. Our leading politicians are playing the role of permanent provocateurs to our eastern neighbour. While claiming that the EU “should speak with one voice towards Russia” they are in fact taking the EU train in completely the wrong direction if pursuing economic interests is to be the priority”.
Also read
The Delphi Forum, 20-21 June 2015, Delphi, Greece
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