The Baltic States will continue to support Ukraine in its efforts to investigate and record the international crimes currently being committed by Russia, according to a joint statement by the Latvian and Lithuanian Ministers of Justice entitled "Truth and justice for the victims of occupation and aggression".
In the statement, Latvian Justice Minister Inese Libina-Egnere and Lithuanian Justice Minister Rimantas Mockus stress that the so-called "great victory" is widely celebrated in Russia on May 9, while Latvia, together with Lithuania, wants to remind the international community how unjust the outcome of the war was for the Baltic States and what the long-term negative consequences of that outcome were.
The defeat of Nazism in Europe did not mean the restoration of independence in the Baltics, but the Soviet Union (USSR) took advantage of its self-proclaimed "victorious state" status and kept all the territories of the three Baltic States that it had seized as an ally of Nazi Germany in the early years of World War II on the basis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
The consequences of this occupation have still not been subject to a comprehensive international legal assessment, the statement stressed, adding that it is therefore essential to fully identify and quantify all the damage caused to the Baltic States by the USSR occupation regime.
It is the moral duty of both countries towards all those who have suffered under a foreign power, the ministers said, adding that the historical example of the Baltic States vividly illustrates the devastating long-term consequences of ignoring international law and placing independent nations under the control of a totalitarian imperialist power for a long period of time.
The Ministers of Justice of Latvia and Lithuania once again confirm their joint commitment to identify, document and quantify the losses caused by the occupation.