Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 22 – Fifty-five
percent of Latvians say they are ready to take up arms to defend their country
in the event of a Russian invasion, and 39 percent say they will join or
support in one way or another a popular resistance movement, according to a SKDS
poll commissioned by the Latvian defense ministry.
The poll, carried out last November,
asked Latvians what they would do if Russia invaded. Eight percent said they
would join the Zemessardze, the Latvian
volunteer armed organization which is part of the country’s armed forces (nr2.lt/News/Lithuania_and_Baltics/Opros-55-zhiteley-Latvii-gotovy-zashchishchat-svoyu-stranu-124811.html).
Seven percent more
said they would resist by force of arms without joining that group, and 24
percent said that they would provide support for those resisting any new
Russian effort at occupation. The survey
also found that 54 percent of the sample would remain in Latvia, while 31
percent said they would leave it.
The presence of NATO forces in
Latvia has led 45 percent of Latvians to say that the security situation there
has improved over the last year, but 29 percent said it had not changed
anything, and seven percent suggested that the country’s security had
deteriorated over the past year.
Fifty-nine percent of Latvians
support the presence of NATO forces on their country’s territory, and 43
percent would like to see their basing made permanent. At the same time, 17
percent oppose that policy, with 30 percent not willing to express an opinion
either for or against such basing.
Meanwhile, in Estonia, the government
has simultaneously promoted in rank some 200 senior officers, a move that Allan
Khants, the editor of the Russian newspaper, Estlyandskiye gubernskiye novosti, says indicates that Tallinn
plans to expand the ranks of its cadres military in order to take in more
soldiers as needed (regnum.ru/news/polit/2241927.html).
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