Official: Estonia and Latvia are the first in the world to recognize russia's crimes in Ukraine as genocide
Latvia, together with Estonia, officially recognized the genocide of the Ukrainian people
This is stated on the website of the Estonian Parliament and on the website of the Saeima of Latvia.
According to the Estonian Ministry, at an extraordinary sitting of the Estonian Parliament, MPs heard a speech by the head of the delegation of the Ukrainian Parliament Olena Shuliak.
They then unanimously approved a statement on russia's war crimes and genocide in Ukraine.
Together with Estonia, Latvia recognized the genocide of the Ukrainian people.
Estonia's statement said that russia had committed acts of genocide, including mass atrocities, against civilians in the temporarily occupied territories, including Bucha, Borodianka, Hostomel, Irpin, and Mariupol.
"[Genocide acts] include murder, kidnapping, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape, and desecration of corpses," the statement said.
In its statement, Latvia pointed to significant evidence of mass atrocities committed by the russian army and condemned crimes against humanity and genocide, citing its obligation to "recognize them and ensure that they do not recur."
In turn, people's deputy Olena Shuliak thanked the countries for strongly condemning russia's aggression and called on the whole world to join in recognizing the genocide in Ukraine.
"People were not killed, raped, and tortured not because they were armed. Not even because they resisted.
They were killed because they belong to a Ukrainian political nation, regardless of ethnicity," she said.
She added that the fact of life was the reason for the murder, and this is a danger to the whole world.
According to her, it is very easy for putin's propagandists to replace the word "Ukrainians" with the name of any nation that was once part of the russian empire or belonged to the russian sphere of influence.
In response, the russian authorities decided to close the Latvian consulates general in St. Petersburg and Pskov, as well as the consulates general of Estonia and Lithuania in St. Petersburg, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
To recap, on April 14, the Verkhovna Rada officially recognized the actions of the russian armed forces, as well as the russian political and military leadership during the full-scale war against Ukraine as genocide of the Ukrainian people.
The Parliament appealed to the UN, the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe, the OSCE, NATO, foreign governments and parliaments to recognize russia's genocide of the Ukrainian people, as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes in Ukraine.
