I recently wound up in a still-ongoing Twitter argument about Kosovo, its history, and whether Serbs or Albanians have the more indigenous claim. Serbs are adamant Kosovo is Serbian land, that Albanians are interlopers. Indeed, that Albanians did not even exist as a people until the Ottoman Empire created them.

The discussion inevitably descended into whataboutism. Who was I to discuss Kosovo when Latvians oppressed Russians?

You're lying [that Russian propaganda about Latvia's oppression of Russians is lies]! What Russian propaganda? When I was in Latvia a couple of months ago, Russians are literally second-class citizens. Not only that, they fear for their lives and must not say anything against the policies of your government. And then Putin is a dictator? and In Russia everyone has the same rights and we are allowed to criticize the government. [translated from Serbian]

More troubling than this false Russian narrative is that more than 30 years after fully restoring sovereignty, Latvians must learn Russian order to have any career opportunity. Even the LIDO restaurant chain conducts employee meetings in Russian because Russians still refuse to learn Latvian—and Latvians indulge them.

Our mailer editorial from September 2004 could have just as easily been written yesterday. From our archives:

Editorial, September 3, 2004

I read Boris Kagarlitsky's thoughts on "A Common Baltic Future" [read article here] with great interest. I found, however, that they share a fundamental flaw with much of the analyses disseminated about the "problem" of Latvian Russians: that the Latvian nationalists fear the application of EU objectivity and norms because it will stop their abuse of Latvian Russians. That is the basis of Mr. Kagarlitsky's alleged "paradox."

Indisputably, Latvian nationalists look to EU membership to re-affirm the Baltics' western European heritage—even under czarist Russia, the Baltics exercised a considerable degree of autonomy and remained western in outlook. A fundamental point which Mr. Kagarlitsky misses, however, is that Latvian nationalists also look to the EU for objectivity regarding the situation of Latvian Russians. They seek an effective counterbalance to Russia's wide-ranging and ceaseless assault on the Baltics, from the Duma's jingoistic pronouncements on human rights violations—the Baltics' treatment of Russians is apparently more evil than the Russian army's practice of exploding Chechen bodies to prevent identification—to the Duma's resolutions that the Baltics joined the Soviet Union voluntarily and legally—and that to suggest otherwise is an anti-anti-fascist—i.e., Nazi—lie.

The true paradox is that Russia, as self-appointed proxy for Latvian Russians, does not seek EU objectivity. It rejects outright any objectivity that fails to fit its anti-Baltic agenda. The OSCE position on the validity of Latvia's language laws is clear and indisputable; that position is now under frontal assault: Russia and its more oppressive CIS partners, in a joint declaration, recently took the OSCE to task for pointing out their human rights violations—the aforementioned exploding bodies, widening suppression of a free press, et al.—while turning a blind eye to atrocities committed daily in Estonia and Latvia.

Indeed, Mr. Kagarlitsky takes up Russia's "blind eye" argument in his direct assertion that the Baltics are not being held to EU standards: "attempts by the Latvian government to drastically reduce the availability of Russian-language instruction in public schools flagrantly contradicts European norms," and, "if the interests of minorities were a concern for Western politicians, Latvia and Estonia would not have been admitted to the EU until they had brought their laws in this area into line with European norms." This EU-Baltic axis "consipiracy theory" plays well in domestic Russian politics and international posturing, but it is no more than Russian misdirection and misinformation taking on the guise of veracity by way of endless repetition.

If one scrutinizes minority language schooling within the EU, there is no simple declaration demanding such; rather, one finds a formalized process for preserving the languages of centuries-extant indigenous minorities evaluated and executed on a case by case basis. (In Latvia, this could apply to schooling in Liv or Latgalian.) Regardless, there is nothing in Latvia's language policies which precludes Russian cultural instruction in Russian. As a parallel, I was born and grew up in New York, but attended Latvian school on the weekend, studying grammar, literature, history, and geography in my parents' native language. Conversely, my parents learned English in order to fully participate in the life-blood of their new home.

And therein lies the true crux of the issue. The situation is not one of Latvians systematically attempting to wipe out the Russian language and culture—even every one of my relative says "Davai!" for "Okay!" It's not the preservation of Russian that is at issue, it is Latvian Russian refusal to learn Latvian. There is a minority of Latvian Russians who:

• continue to hold the Latvians and Latvian language in utter disdain;
• continue to believe that Soviet preferential treatment of Russians versus Latvians is a natural state of entitlement;
• and that denial of that entitlement is oppression.

When Russian journalists held their worldwide convention in Latvia in August, 2000, to discuss the state of Russians abroad, they expected to hold Latvia—the global epicenter of Russian minority abuse—accountable to the world. Instead, even Duma politicians in attendance freely admitted that what they found was far different from what Russian pronouncements and Latvian Russian "rights-advocates" had led them to expect.

Put bluntly, the refusal to learn Latvian by segments of its Russian minority is not a defiant act of Russian cultural preservation. It is a blatant effort to perpetuate perceived Russian supremacy through denial of the Latvian state. And therein, perhaps, we find the true motivation of the Russian Duma in its endless denouncements of the Baltic "situation": its collective weltschmerz over how things are—independent autonomous Baltic states—and how it wishes they were—continued Soviet/Russian domination and state-paid vacations for Duma members to Jurmala, the Latvian Riviera.

Boris Kagarlitsky (Russian: Бори́с Кагарли́цкий; born 29 August 1958) is a Russian Marxist theoretician and sociologist who has been a political dissident in the Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia. He is coordinator of the Transnational Institute Global Crisis project and Director of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements (IGSO) in Moscow. Kagarlisky hosts a YouTube channel "Rabkor," associated with his online newspaper of the same name and with the IGSO. (Russia declared Kagarlisky and IGSO as "foreign agents" in 2021). [at Wikipedia]

From its vodka — born of Ukrainian Cossack horilka, to its very origins as a culture — insisting Kievan Rus' is Russian not Ukrainian, Russia has envied Ukraine and claimed it as its own. In truth, the Ukrainian and Russian cultures parted ways some 1,500 years ago. But since Putin has claimed Ukraine is neither a separate country nor culture, we first had to make it clear that his claim is false.

The origin of Putin's full-scale war against Ukraine, however, is less one of cultural appropriation and more the culmination of a Russian campaign pre-dating Putin and originating prior to the dissolution of the USSR to

• destabilize nascent democracies and, subsequently, to
• re-integrate former Soviet territories back into Russia.

This campaign has been monumentally successful, spurred on in large part by three decades of minimal negative consequences to Russia for its territorial aggression against its neighbors.

Moldova's Trans-Dniester — a template for aggression

February-March, 1990 — Moldova holds its first free parliamentary elections since having been joined to the USSR, Popular Front of Moldova wins landslide victory. Soviet loyalists "fearing" Moldovan-Romanian reunification declare themselves a republic in the Trans-Dniester, aka Pridnestrovie ("by the Dniester") or Transnistria, a strip of territory along the left bank of the Dniester river containing most of Moldova's industrial assets.

September 2, 1990 — Russian-backed separatist election declares Transnistria an independent republic.

November 2, 1990 — Armed conflict erupts in Dubăsari: pro-Transnistrian forces, including Transnistrian Republican Guard, militia and neo-Cossack units, and units of the Russian 14th Guards Army versus pro-Moldovan forces including Moldovan troops and police.

January 20, 1991 — Russian Black Beret OMON forces under the command of Vladimir Antyufeyev shoot freedom demonstrators in Rīga, Latvia, including killing cinematographer Andris Slapiņš by sniper fire.

August 19–22, 1991 — Soviet coup d'état attempts to remove Gorbachov from power, Antyufeyev is among the coup supporters; August 19th was the date Yeltsin stood on a tank in defiance.

September, 1991 — Viktor Alksnis sends Antyufeyev and his unit into Moldova to ensure successful breakaway of its Trans-Dniester region under Russian control.

December, 1991 — Igor Smirnov, Lenin wannabe complete with goatee, wins election as first "president" of Transnistria. To "prove" victory, the PMR authorities show election results, every last person and who they voted for, to Pål Kolstø, Professor of Russian and Central European and Balkan Area Studies at the University of Oslo, who is horrified. Antyufeyev is appointed Minister of Security of Transnistria under the assumed name Vadim Shevstov.

March, 1992 — Fighting escalates between Moldova and Transnistrian separatists.

Let's recount, for example, the events of the first days of March [1992], that had catalyzed the spring confrontation at Dubossary. In the night of the 3rd of March a tragedy occurred in the Grigoriopol region. Bandits gunned down an ambulance car that carried a pregnant woman to a hospital. A midwife was killed and the driver, the woman and other passengers were wounded as a result.

Smirnov blamed the deed on Moldovan volunteers and declared the state of emergency in the Dubossary district. The 6th of March 1992 was declared "Black Friday", and on the central street of the city a [public] funeral was held for the dead. Smirnov was either insincere, or didn't know the whole truth himself [because] the ambulance car with the pregnant woman was gunned down by Transnistrian security officers and former members of the Riga OMON: V. Nikitenko and S. Bubnov. The assignment was given to the executioners by their commander, Vadim Shevtsov [Antyufeyev], personally. R Sabirov, a witness to this heinous crime, told this to A.I. Lebed of it in 1993, and later recounted it on TV "ASKET". [Lebed was commander of the Russian 14th Guards Army occupying Transnistria.] — translated from ВОЖДЬ В ЧУЖОЙ СТАЕ, by Mikhail Bergman

Fighting, interrupted by periodic ceasefires, lasts until a final ceasefire in July, 1992.

The Kremlin conducts a massive disinformation campaign to portray the Transnistrian regime as legitimate. (Read Edward Lucas's two part series on Transnistria here and here.) Moldovan industry is privatized into the hands of Russian oligarchs, and despite acceding to multiple agreements to leave, Russian military still occupies the territory as "peacekeepers" today.

June 12, 1999 — British NATO forces at Pristina disobey orders to engage Russians and chest-thump later that they prevented WWIII. Putin, appointed president at year end, takes the lesson to heart: NATO fears war.

How is Moldova relevant to Ukraine today?

Moldova established the model for intervention which Russia has used ever since: in Georgia's South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Ukraine's Crimea, Donbas and Luhansk; and now in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

1. Stage elections = false proof of the Russophone "Russian compatriot" populace's desire to leave non-Russian state
2. Stage incidents = false accusations and/or false flag operations against the non-Russian state of terrorisim, genocide,...against Russophones
3. Cite #1 and/or #2 as the basis for "humanitarian" intervention to protect Russophones
4. Manufacture "news" and diplomacy campaign associated with the justification of territorial break-away and of subsequent Russian protectionist intervention.

Completing the Moldova-Ukraine connection, 23 years after killing freedom demonstrators in Latvia, 22 years after killing innocents to precipitate martial law in Transnistria, Vladimir Antyufeyev is named "Deputy Prime Minister" of Donetsk in 2014 as the neo-Soviet Kremlin moves forward with its next operation against Ukraine having completed Crimea's annexation. (The true results of the referendum to join Russia were accidentally released, then withdrawn, indicating less than 25% support.)

The events of the past three-plus decades demonstrate that while Putin is the instigator of the current bloodshed in Ukraine, he is merely the keeper of a tradition of Russian territorial aggrandizement unbroken for centuries. Let's not forget that Russia invented ethnic "cleansing", using that term for the removal of Circassians from their homeland, ultimately resulting in their genocide.

A step too far

When Russia claims the heritage of Kievan Rus' as its own, it also claims Sviatoslav I, who overextended his campaign of territorial acquisition, prematurely moving his capital southward to today's Romania. The Pechenegs assassinated him in 972 and turned his skull into a drinking goblet.

Since Crimea, Putin has been cremating Russian dead in eastern Ukraine using mobile crematoria, eliminating evidence of direct Russian involvement. But with this escalation launching war against Ukraine, Putin, too, has overextended himself and can no longer cover up Russian losses. Thousands will come home in body bags — unless Putin leaves them to rot in Ukraine's fields and cities.

When, not if, the Russian offensive grinds to a halt, we could expect Putin to declare his "punitive" campaign concluded and withdraw forces back to eastern Ukraine as "peacekeepers". But perhaps the Russian people will finally rise up and cast off the centuries-old yoke of despotic rule by which the rest of the world judges all Russians, and Putin becomes the last of the Sviatoslavs.

The alternative, that Putin achieves total victory, kills or jails/deports all of Ukraine's leadership a la the USSR and the Baltics in WWII, and moves on to his next conquest in central-eastern Europe is one our faith in Ukraine and humanity cannot permit.