Latvia 'Concerned' Over Russia's Crimea Actions

Putin Keen To Block Europe's March

Updated: 9:18am UK, Tuesday 18 March 2014

By Sam Kiley, Foreign Affairs Editor in Moscow

Two events, miles apart, and nothing to do with Crimea's widely condemned referendum on leaving the Ukraine for Russia, will reinforce the Kremlin's view that Vladimir Putin's stealthy grab of the peninsula was a smart strategic move.

One was the small march through Riga by veterans and supporters of Latvia's Waffen-SS - Hitler's willing servants.

The second are snap elections under way in Serbia.

The parade by the supporters of the vile ideology of Nazism could also have been deliberately orchestrated by Mr Putin himself.

The 1,500 pro-Nazis marched through Riga, the capital of a European Union state that's not so much in Russia's back yard but in its porch.

"You see," the Kremlin's heavies will tell themselves. "You let Europe into our sphere and the Nazis come back."

They point incessantly, as does the Russian media, to western Ukraine's pro-Nazi past.

The Maidan revolution which brought Kiev's new government to power and kicked out Victor Yanukovych, a Moscow client, is portrayed as a conspiracy of "fascists" - the heirs to the SS marching through Riga.

Close to a third of Latvians are of Russian extraction.

Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were invaded by Stalin in 1940. Russian communities were established in each one. And each of these Baltic States is anxiously watching Moscow's next move and hoping that they can rely on their membership of Nato to protect them from a Crimean-style invasion.

But that doesn't matter to Mr Putin's supporters.

They're interested in a bright new era in which Russia re-asserts itself as the bulwark against American hegemony.

This is as much a spiritual as it is a physical mission.

The West, Mr Putin's supporters will say, is materialistic, hollow, lacking soul and homogenised by American cultural exports.

The US has thrown its weight around the world, invading Iraq and Afghanistan, bombing Serbia, crowbarring Kosovo away from Belgrade.

Until Mr Putin, modern Russia could do little about this.

The economy was on its knees. Not long ago one could buy a Soviet bomber or a submarine for chump change and Moscow's Top Gun pilots flew air taxi services in Africa and were paid in meat, veg and vodka.

Those days of shame are over, Mr Putin's supporters believe.

Now the rot must be stopped.

Nazis are on the march in the Baltics, Serbia is leaning dangerously towards the European Union and Bosnia has the begging bowl out.

These are all new opportunities for a newly confident oil and gas-rich Russia.

Its armed forces are back up to scratch.

It has spare cash to wean Sarajevo away from Brussels.

And Slav nationalists will work hard and ruthlessly to keep Serbia inside the Slavic and Orthodox religious dispensation.

The Crimean grab is not the end of the matter, Mr Putin's many supporters believe. It's probably a warm up. Moscow is on a salvation march.

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