08.02.2007 RIGA, LATVIA. Police officer guard stands facing a row of young men with naked torsos protesting outside the Latvian parliament building against the signing of a controversial Russian-Latvian border treaty, in which Latvia gives up all territorial claims on the disputed Pytalovo District of Russia's Pskov Region (before 1944, Abrene District). (Photo ITAR-TASS / Timur Subkhankulov) Photo: Maxim Lensky, Mikhail Zygar

Yesterday the government of Latvia received a report on the estimate of the damages caused by the Soviet occupation. Neither the members of the committee, nor the ministers revealed the final figure, but according to the information of Kommersant, it ranges between $3.5bln and $4.5bln, which is 10 times smaller than the sum Lithuania demands from Russia. The report can be given to President Valdis Zatlers and the parliament (the Saeima) within two or three weeks, and in summer the calculations of Latvian scholars can be featured during the negotiations between Mr Zatlers and Dmitry Medvedev.

Material claims

According to the information that Kommersant got from the government of Latvia, the authorities need the current report of the commission estimating the damages of the Soviet occupation to get ready for the forthcoming talks between Latvia’s President Valdis Zatlers and Russia’s president-elect Dmitry Medvedev. A high-ranking official within the Latvian Foreign Office told Kommersant that this winter President Zatlers received Vladimir Putin’s invitation to visit Moscow. No exact date was indicated, and there has been no visit scheduled for the last months of Putin’s term in office. Now they say in Riga that the summit of Russia and Latvia will be held no sooner than June.

According to the information that Kommersant got in the Latvian Foreign Ministry, the report submitted to the government yesterday is preliminary – its official version will be prepared by the end of this year or the beginning of the next one. The preliminary variant was obviously required for the Latvian government to be able to go into details when bringing up the issue of the compensation during the forthcoming negotiations with the Russian counterparts. At the same time an official in the government told Kommersant that the total sum of damages, which Latvia wants to be awarded for the Soviet occupation, might be announced in two or three weeks. This is the period of time the Cabinet of Ivars Godmanis will probably need to study the submitted materials.

The documents given to the government of Latvia read that the commission created a database containing information on the citizens of Latvia who were subjected to mass deportation March 25, 1949. The total number of those suffered is 55.580. The issue of the damage the USSR did to the Latvian economy from 1935 to 1940 (the country was in the zone of the Soviet influence), and from 1945 to 1990 (the command type of economy was practiced in Latvia) was covered as well. The demographic damage the country suffered from 1940 to 1959 was estimated, too. But this part of the committee’s report can be disputed: experts opine that the members of the committee didn’t take full account of the consequences of the Second World War for the entire Europe. This part is likely to be excluded from the final document.

The members of the committee also studied the damages done to the ecology of Latvia within the whole period of the occupation. Those died during the Afghan war and the Chernobyl accident will be considered as well. The committee even indicated the track that the radioactive cloud followed.

According to the information of Kommersant, the approximate sum of the damages from the Soviet occupation won’t be that big – it will range between $3.5bln and $4.5bln. At that, some MPs in the Saeima presume that after the report is studied at the governmental level, only the demand to claim damages to the victims of deportation and their heirs, and those who lost their property during the occupation period, can appear to be left of the entire document. In this case the total sum won’t exceed $1.5bln.

Moral satisfaction

The committee on estimating the damages was established August 2005 after a decree of the Latvian parliament. At that time its setup was a pure political step, since the relations between Russia and Latvia were deteriorated. The crisis followed the 60th anniversary of the Great Victory, where the then President of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, took part, unlike her opposite numbers from Lithuania and Estonia. Riga was looking forward for Moscow to meet the wish of Latvia and acknowledge the fact of the Soviet occupation of the country. But the Kremlin’s stance remained unchanged. In Riga they were also very sensitive about the case when a Russian journalist called Vaira Vike-Freiberga the governor of New Zealand by mistake.

Soon after the scandalous celebration of the Victory Day Russia denounced the border agreement with Latvia, suspecting the Latvian parliament of attempting to raise territorial claims to Russia concerning the Pytalovo district of the Pskov region. In the middle of May, 2005 Vladimir Putin said that Latvia would never get the Pytalovo district.

As the crisis reached its climax, the government of Latvia decided to set up an ad hoc committee to calculate the damage from the Soviet occupation. The committee was expected to quickly accomplish its work and make a report by late 2005. But the work dragged on, and was even suspended early 2007. Soon after it the then Prime Ministers of Russia and Latvia, Mikhail Fradkov and Aigars Kalvītis managed to arrive at the border treaty. But then, at the beginning of 2008, the committee resumed its work (due to the stance of the general public in most respects), and was obliged to make a final report on the work done.

According to Andis Kudors, a political analyst from Latvia, Director of Riga’s Center for East European Studies, the major aim of the report has nothing to do with the desire to make Russia pay the compensation. “In theory Russia can be demanded to pay the money. Actually few people want Russia to give anything to Latvia. Everyone wants to see a symbolic gesture. Now Vatican City doesn’t practice inquisition, but the Pope decided to apologize nonetheless. Since Russia is the continuator of the Soviet Union, it shouldn’t only enjoy its membership in the UN Security Council. It must bear responsibility. The thing is Russia doesn’t want to look itself in the eye and confront its Soviet past, hence the Russian policy towards its neighbors. Everyone understands that Russia itself suffered from the Soviet regime. But why does it defend it now? Russia doesn’t reveal its archives. The Federal Security Service conceals documents without letting our historians read them,” Mr Kudors told Kommersant.

It need be pointed out that Latvia’s neighbors have already conducted such kind of research and officially announced results. For example, in Estonia they began calculating the damages caused by the Soviet occupation as far back as 1992. As a result, the White book came out, where it was stated that Estonia lost some 180.000 people during the Soviet and Fascist occupation. Estonian experts didn’t provide exact sums of money that each person could get, but the damages the Soviet army caused to the Estonian ecology were estimated at $4bln. Nevertheless the incumbent Prime Minister of Estonia Andrus Ansip repeatedly stated that Tallin was not going to claim damages. “I cannot account for the future, but now we have no claims to make. No people and no state can live in their past. We must move forward, without demanding to pay bills,” the Estonian PM said.

The parliament of Lithuania also adopted a law obliging the government to seek to claim damages of the Soviet occupation, which was estimated at $28bln. But later Lithuania’s President Valdas Adamkus said that the damages to be claimed are moral rather than financial.

According to a high-ranking official in the Latvian Foreign Office, it’s up to the government of the republic whether to demand money or apology from Moscow, or whether to skip the matter. The decision will be taken depending on the development of the bilateral relations within the next months.

The Latvian government has obvious reasons to give up its claims. For example, unlike its Estonian and Lithuanian opposite numbers, the Latvian government doesn’t mind building the Nord Stream gas pipeline. Moreover, Riga suggests that branching of the pipeline be made leading to the Latvian coast, plus a big gas storage center be built on the territory of the republic. But Gazprom and the Latvian gas monopoly Latvijas Gaze controlled by the Russian giant state that the project has no economic prospects.

Besides, some representatives of the Latvian political elite have links to Gazprom. For example, the former Latvian PM Aigars Kalvītis is one of the founders of the revived “Dinamo” hockey club, Riga, which will play in the continental league along with Russian teams. And Gazprom will sponsor the celebrated Soviet hockey club. By the way it is Mr Kalvītis that managed to negotiate the signing and ratifying of the bilateral border treaty. So not every Latvian politician finds it reasonable to accomplish the research of the damages caused by the Soviet occupation.

The Chairman of the Duma Committee on International Affairs, Konstantin Kosachev, said yesterday that “Russia’s reaction to the matter will depend on Latvia’s reaction.” Mr Kosachev believes that the committee’s report is another attempt of Latvian national radicals to impede the improvement of the relations between Moscow and Riga. The MP means that “some people in Latvia have a kind of complex regarding the fact that unlike Finland, for example, their republic didn’t succeed in asserting its independence from the Soviet Union at the end of the 1930s, and later it didn’t distinguish itself as a nation through struggle against Nazism during WWII.”