Latvian mayor avoids to call Russia "aggressor"

The mayor of Daugavpils - the second-largest city in Latvia - Andrejs Elksnins called Crimea Russian and also avoided calling Russia the aggressor and the only culprit of the war.

According to Delfi, his statements were made on the air of the program "Kāpē", writes European Pravda.

He was asked several times if he would like the victory of Ukraine and the defeat of Russia, to which he answered several times in a row that "there will be no winners in the war" and this is a human tragedy.

When asked to name who is the aggressor in this war, he said that he had already given answers to these questions. To the remark that it is now very important to call everything by its name, Elksnins replied: "The war in Ukraine is clear and obvious, Russia is waging war not on the territory of its own country, this is obvious."

When asked about Crimea, the mayor said that "Crimea is part of the Russian Federation." After remarking that almost the entire international community did not recognize the occupation of the peninsula, he replied that this was so, but "it is impossible to share the facts that it was included in the Russian Federation and that the whole world continued to cooperate with Russia after that."

Answering a question about Russia's responsibility for the killings of civilians in Bucha, the mayor said that "Russia, Ukraine and the United States are responsible for everything that happened."

When asked to explain why he considers the victim of aggression - Ukraine - also responsible, Elksnins replied: "Everyone is responsible for this situation, diplomats first of all - because when diplomats fail, weapons begin to speak. It has always been like this. Therefore, in this situation, we must talk about the loss of diplomacy."