Andreis Elksninsh refused to recognize Russia as an aggressor in the war against Ukraine.
From the very beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, Latvia took a clear position of support for Kyiv. Despite this, some local politicians still support the aggressor country and are not ashamed to speak about it out loud. In particular, the mayor of the city of Daugavpils Andreis Elksninsh, who stated that Crimea is “part of Russia”, and that the diplomats of Ukraine, Russia and the USA, who could not come to an agreement among themselves, are to blame for the murders of Ukrainian civilians. His words are quoted by Delfi.
According to the source, in one of his last conversations with journalists, Elksninsh several times refused to recognize Russia as the aggressor in the war against Ukraine. He called the events in Ukraine a “human tragedy”, but did not answer a direct question about its perpetrators.
In the same interview, Elksninsh once again openly expressed his pro-Russian position. He said that Crimea “is part of the Russian Federation.” Even after noting that almost the entire international community did not recognize the occupation of the peninsula, he noted that this was true, but “it is impossible to separate the facts that it was included in the Russian Federation and that the whole world continued to cooperate with Russia after that.”
The politician's scandalous statements did not end there. While removing responsibility from Russia for the killings of civilians in Buch, the mayor of Daugavpils said that Russia, Ukraine, and the United States, and more specifically, their diplomats, are to blame for everything.
“Everyone is responsible for this situation, first of all diplomats. Because when diplomats cannot come to an agreement, weapons start talking. It was always like that. Therefore, in this situation, it is necessary to talk about the loss of diplomacy,” noted Elksniņš.
It should be noted that Andrejs Elksniņš is a representative of the Social Democratic Party of Saskaņa, which has traditionally relied on support Russian-speaking residents of Latvia.
Read also: Latvia's key pro-Russian party did not overcome the barrier in the parliamentary elections
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