Riga City Council Votes To Demolish Monument To Liberators In Riga

Riga City Council Votes to Demolish Monument to Liberators in Riga

The Riga City Council at an extraordinary meeting voted for the demolition of the Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th May, 2022) The Riga City Council at an extraordinary meeting voted for the demolition of the Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders.

The Parliament of Latvia earlier adopted a law to suspend the operation of a clause of the intergovernmental agreement with Russia on the protection of monuments to Soviet soldiers in the country, which would allow the dismantling of the monument to the Liberators of Riga.

The demolition of the monument was supported by 38 lawmakers, 7 voted against, and there were no abstentions. The broadcast was conducted on the website of the Riga City Council.

"To instruct the agency of the Riga municipality 'Riga Monuments Agency' to carry out all the necessary work to ensure the dismantling of the object," the text of the adopted document says.

On Wednesday, the police closed access to the monument to the Liberators of Riga located in Riga's Victory Park. Municipal services removed the flowers laid on May 9 near the monument with a tractor. Later, the city's residents again began to bring flowers there. On Thursday, the Latvian Parliament allowed the demolition of the monument.

Against the backdrop of this decision, Andrey Klimov, the head of the Russian Federation Council Commission for the Protection of State Sovereignty, told Sputnik that Latvia shuold be "reasoned" by extremely tough measures, including economic ones. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, commenting on the situation with monuments to Soviet soldiers in Latvia and Lithuania, called it "an international outrage."