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Friends or Foes? - Russia and the Baltic States

July 5, 2022

The Baltic States are watching the war in Ukraine with great concern. Will the fighting lead to divisions within their own societies?

https://p.dw.com/p/4D8nC
Sendung | Dokumentation "Brüder, Nachbarn, Feinde – Russland und das Baltikum"
Image: RBB

 How do Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians and Russians live together, in the current situation?

Sendung | Dokumentation "Brüder, Nachbarn, Feinde – Russland und das Baltikum"
Image: RBB

Filmmaker Lutz Pehnert travels from Narva, Europe's most northeastern city on the border with Russia, through Latvia to Lithuania. Along the way, he converses with many different people.  "Will we be next, after Ukraine?" That's what many people living in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are asking themselves right now.

Sendung | Dokumentation "Brüder, Nachbarn, Feinde – Russland und das Baltikum"
Image: RBB

For 40 years, the Baltic countries were - involuntarily -- part of the Soviet Union's ‘family of nations’. Since their independence in the early 1990s, there has been friction with their neighbors to the east -- Russia and Belarus. The Baltic countries see their memberships in NATO and the EU as their greatest protection against Putin and his imperial dreams. "If I wanted, Russian troops would be in Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn in two days," Putin is said to have once told former Ukrainian President Poroshenko.

Sendung | Dokumentation "Brüder, Nachbarn, Feinde – Russland und das Baltikum"
Image: RBB

Indeed, the Baltic states are home to many ethnic Russians, who settled there as Soviet citizens. In Estonia alone, these ethnic Russians comprise some 25 percent of the population. And the Latvian city of Daugavpils, the "most Russian" city in the EU, is even referred to as the "Latvian Crimea." 

Could the war in Ukraine lead to a division of Baltic societies? How do Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Russians live together? To what extent have people been changed by 30 years of independence? And what traces did the Soviet era leave?

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