The Kremlin's information offensive against the institution of the President of Latvia has been widespread. Almost all available propaganda channels have been activated to spread the story of secret Nazi springs holding up modern Latvia, and a scientific research institution subordinate to the Prosecutor General's Office of Belarus has also been involved. Moreover, the new operation is linked to the persecution of Latvian legionnaires in 2020.
Predictably, the "research" by the Russian government-operated non-governmental organization "Фонд Историческая память" (Historical Memory Foundation) into the family biography of Jānis Kažociņš, an advisor to Latvian President Egils Levits, served as an overture to a broader information attack. At the center of this fabrication is the thesis that Jānis Kažociņš was hired at the Riga Castle because he was brought up by the Nazis, and that the President turned a blind eye to this. Thus, "the Kremlin runs a vile provocation against the institution of the President of Latvia". The President's Office provided Neatkarīgā with an explanation of the older aspects of the biography of Jānis Kažociņš and his family, refuting the false claims of the Kremlin's pseudo-historians. But of course, these do not reach the Russian audience of the Russian propaganda tools. The tools continue to reproduce the information fabrication in its original form, and this may have consequences.
One of the lies is that Jānis Kažociņš, a former legionnaire living in Australia, is a relative of the Presidential Adviser. But he isn't. He just has the same name. But now, after this series of publications, the "Scientific and Practical Centre for Strengthening Legality and Rule of Law" under the Prosecutor General's Office of Belarus will demand the extradition of the 100-year-old legionnaire for questioning. The institution's own website did not contain such a message, but the Kremlin's propaganda tools, and above all Sputnik, have republished a picture of Alexander Dyukov, head of the Historical Memory Foundation, handing over a folder to an employee of the Belarusian Prosecutor General's Office. Dyukov is the same Russian agent who claims to be a historian and whose job is to systematically denigrate the Latvian state. It is all the easier to carry out this order for personal reasons - he is denied access to Latvia. Dyukov has been officially declared an undesirable person for Latvia and for years has been forced to disseminate his orders and, at the same time, his personal hatred remotely. He currently has et his eyes on the institution of the President of Latvia and Jānis Kažociņš, who, when he was the Director of the Constitution Protection Bureau, exposed Dyukov and his entire Kremlin foundation.
It is difficult to tell why Dyukov asked Belarus to hound Jānis Kažociņš, who lives in Australia. Russia itself had already launched a campaign of espionage against Latvian legionnaires two years ago. And this was done, again, on the basis of a study by the Historical Memory Foundation - "Supporters of Nazi Crimes. 96 Latvian SS Legion veterans who are still alive". At that time, Neatkarīgā received several reports that the elderly and their relatives living abroad were being hounded and frightened. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation also got involved in this campaign. The first legionnaire to be publicly vilified was Visvaldis Lācis, a Latvian soldier who received the Order of the Three Stars. But he died. Now another candidate has apparently been found - Jānis Kažociņš in Australia. Never mind that he is not, in fact, a relative to the Adviser to the President. He was good enough for the Kremlin's Nazi glorification campaign.
This is just one small episode in the Kremlin's project to falsify European history. There are also a host of new monuments erected on Latvian territory to glorify the army of occupation. Ceremonial reburials have been organized. Then there are the annual celebrations of the occupation of Latvia at the Pārdaugava "Monument to the Soviet Soldiers - Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders". Russia is methodically trying to change the collective memory of society according to its interpretation of the Second World War, in which Russians are heroes and Latvians are Nazi criminals.
They still say of us: латыши - гансы.