The former Supreme Council members, who are now members of the '4 May Declaration Club', consider that the monument is a symbol of Russia carrying hatred, pain, despair, and destruction.
"In our view, for the smaller part of the country's population, mostly Russian-speaking, [the monument] symbolizes their belonging to a hegemony-stricken, alien power in our Latvia and its capital, Rīga. We believe that this foreign body should be removed at the earliest opportunity," Čebotarenoka said in a statement.
Members of the club are informed of Latvia's international agreements relating to the maintenance of the monument but believe those should be reviewed in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
“We must make a decision as a state so that we do not remain the only ones with a ghost symbolizing occupation, aggression, and russkij sovetskij mir [Russian Soviet world] remains in the center of the capital,” stated Čebotarenoka.
