MOSCOW, January 10. /TASS/. Several thousand Russians find themselves on the brink of being deported from Latvia due to recent amendments to the Baltic state’s immigration law, Russian Charge d’Affaires in Latvia Oleg Zykov told Russia’s Channel One television.
"The situation is currently extremely tense as regards respecting the rights of Russian citizens who reside in Latvia. The local immigration service has begun on a mass scale to invalidate the permanent residency permits of those [resident] Russians who did not manage to meet the deadline for complying with the requirements of amendments to the country’s immigration law that, in our view, are absolutely inhumane and discriminatory. As a result of this legislative initiative, several thousand Russians now find themselves today on the brink of deportation," the diplomat said.
He also stressed that the problems encountered in observance of the rights of Russian-speaking residents of Latvia are systemic and have been ongoing for many years. "Basically, since [Latvia] gained independence, the leadership of this Baltic republic has pursued a policy course aimed at building a monoethnic state," the envoy noted. "Within the framework of this ideological orientation, over many years, the republic’s authorities have been pursuing a focused policy aimed at stamping out the use of the Russian language [in Latvia’s public square, banishing it] virtually from all areas of public life, including the educational system," he explained.
In September 2022, the Latvian Saeima (unicameral parliament) passed amendments to the country’s immigration law requiring that all Russian citizens permanently residing in the Baltic state obtain a certificate proving their proficiency at the A2 level in the Latvian language by September 1, 2023, or face having their residency documents revoked.
On September 14, 2023, the Saeima approved in the final reading immigration law amendments that extend by two years the deadline for passing the exam on proficiency in Latvian, the official state language, in order to obtain the right to permanent residency in the Baltic state. Thus, Russian citizens residing in Latvia can now obtain a temporary two-year residency permit and pass the state language exam during this period. However, they had to have filed their application to obtain a residency permit by December 31.