RIGA — Latvia’s diaspora is expressing apprehension that Latvia may once again face a campaign of Russification now that the country is weakened economically and the eastern neighbor is increasingly assertive.

Mārtiņš Sausiņš, chairman of the World Federation of Free Latvians, said in Riga on Wednesday that, in comparison to previous years, the Russification of Latvia is taking place covertly and that the Baltic state is vulnerable not only because of its deep recession, but because the United States might begin neglecting Eastern Europe.

The White House administration’s recent decision not to deploy an anti-missile system in the Czech Republic and Poland has been criticized by many in Eastern Europe as a cave-in to Kremlin pressure even though the system was designed to protect Europe from Iranian, not Russian missiles.

Sausiņš, who was speaking at the federation’s annual three-day council meeting, said it was crucial that Latvian politicians strengthened the status of the national language. According to reports, he also recommended that pupils begin studying Latvian history as a separate subject.

Riga's Soviet Victory Monument, built in 1985, has never been loved much by Latvians, most of whom view the 1944 Red Army victory over the Germans not as a liberation but occupation under a different empire.

Mayor’s commemoration of Red Army victory criticized

Sausiņš’ speech came one day after Riga Mayor Nils Ušakovs laid a memorial wreath at the Soviet Victory Monument in Pārdaugava that honors the Red Army driving out of Nazi forces from Riga during the Second World War. The move angered many Latvians, who feel their country was not liberated by Soviet forces in but rather that one occupation regime replaced another.

“The participation of a high-ranking official representing the Latvian state, in an event clearly intended to glorify the army of Latvia’s occupiers, qualifies as a demonstration of disrespect to the victims of Soviet totalitarian rule,” deputy chairman of the For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK party Gaidis Berziņš was quoted as saying.