On Thursday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, which has a long-established reputation for gonzo utterances, summoned Latvian Ambassador to Russia Māris Riekstiņš to protest against actions that the ruling regime in Moscow considers hostile to Russia, most obviously the use of heavy machinery to get rid of unwanted occupation-era monuments.
The Ministry warned that it could take retaliatory steps, including "asymmetric" ones, though the precise nature and degree of asymmetry was not specified, presumably to keep it mysterious and scary.
A statement on the Russian Foreign Ministry's own decidedly lopsided website described Latvia's actions, with the lack of self-awareness that has become a surefire hallmark of all its pronoucements, as "barbarism" and "vandalism". It also threw in its usual line about Latvia's "glorification of Nazism" yadda yadda yadda.
Moscow is in a blue funk of epic proportions not only over the ongoing demolition of Soviet erections but also over the possible loss of its beachfront property in Latvia. The Latvian ambassador was upbraided over the potential nationalization of the "Dzintarkrasts" sanatorium near Jūrmala, which is technically owned by the office of the Russian President, whose keen interest in prime seaside real estate is well recorded elsewhere.
Russia has performed numerous similar rants in the past, about which we have written in a similar vein. Meanwhile its genocidal actions in Ukraine continue.
