MOSCOW, January 15. /TASS/. The recent deportation of a Russian retiree from Latvia is absolutely disgraceful ,Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
"Certainly, this practice of forced expulsions is an absolute disgrace for any state," the spokesman said, commenting on Russian citizen Boris Katkov’s expulsion from Latvia after he was deemed a threat to national security.
Peskov pointed out that the Kremlin has no information on how the governors of Russia’s Pskov and Kaliningrad regions, Mikhail Vedernikov and Anton Alikhanov, prepared the meeting with Katkov. At the same time, the Kremlin spokesman opined that "the heads of the regions did what they had to do and did it as correctly as possible."
Boris Katkov, an 82-year-old retiree, was deported from Latvia on January 13 for supposedly being a threat to national security, with no timetable for when he would be able to return. The day before, the country's authorities announced their decision. The Russian Embassy protested the incident, noting that Riga had violated the principle of not separating families: Katkov’s wife, children and grandchildren remained in Latvia.