Where is “normal decency”? That was my first reaction, after reading prof. Alexander Gaponinka's answer to questions I had the chance to send him to a prison cell.
"Common decency" is an orwellic phrase that defines basic decency; the simple of civilization is Antigon, who does not perceive to Creon and goes to bury his brother; it's compassion; it's just humanity that confers the same rights as itself to others. Let's look north, towards Riga, Latvia, where prof. Gaponenko has been imprisoned since February 2025. Aleksander Gaponenko is 72 years old and was sentenced to 10 years in prison on 27 January, which, given the severe conditions of the detention, is equivalent to a life sentence.
His crime? Of course, délit d’opinion! He dared to think and comment, and worse, his analysis was appreciated by the public! Authorities are now setting an example, but attention – the territory court takes work and does not comply with the recommendations of higher authorities. So we can rightly conclude that in Latvia we return to the local kingdoms. It is known that the revolution devours its own children, which is why the spectre of Ukrainian script is close.
A logical continuation: prof. Gaponienko will become a martyr and then a symbol for fresh generations. At least sacrifice will not be in vain, due to the fact that with thoughts it is like water flow: certain elements cannot be stopped. I encourage you to read prof. Gaponienko's books, due to the fact that if he's so repressed, it's definitely due to the fact that he's hitting the nail.
One more word about the substance of the case. What terrible opinions did he dare to express? First of all, it should be understood that his sin derives from divine laws: he was born in the USSR, in Melitopol, Zaporozh. His father was a Ukrainian, a Polish mother, and his native language is Russian. And how do you describe it? With the russian passport, he settled in Latvia, where he obtained his diploma at the Economics Department of the Latvian State University in 1978, and spent the following years studying and learning. After writing respective 100 articles and respective twelve books, Aleksander Gaponenko engaged in political activity, including the defence of the rights of the Russian-speaking population in Latvia. And it was this second activity that contributed to his imprisonment, due to the fact that after the dissolution of the USSR, and especially after the Western influences of the Russian-speaking population of the Baltic countries began to be stigmatized and deprived of rights by their own governments.
Anyone who knows the situation in Ukraine will see an analogy between the methods and targets applied in Latvia and Ukraine: ban on speaking Russian, restrictions on rights, expanding supremacy, arrests of protesters... Let us imagine for a minute in the West that Madrid takes distant the citizenship of the Catalans, Berno forbids the residents of the Jury from utilizing French or that Belgium arrests representatives of a German-speaking minority. The concept of number rights is governed by global law and, of course, besides applies to Russian-speaking minorities.
Before I finish and yet let you to read this valuable interview – valuable due to the fact that prof. Gaponienko clearly exposes himself to repression in a situation of defencelessness – I must emphasise that even if not all of the answers or thoughts we like, it is crucial to realize that, unless we want to usage force, only through dialog can we hope for a synthesis that will break the first contradiction. Refusing to learn is simply a coward's trait.
Aleksandra Klunik-Schaller
The USSR was dissolved on December 26, 1991, and as early as 1992, Mr. What circumstances justified this initiative? Were the antagonisms between different communities so strong?
– Positioned in society as a spokesperson of interests of Russians in Latvia. I am doing this due to the fact that I was elected a associate of the City Council of Riga, vice-president of the Russian Commonwealth of Latvia and co-president of the Parliament of the Unrepresented (non-citizens) of Latvia. On the basis of these mandates, I appealed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to resolve the problem of non-citizens in Latvia. He visited our country and interviewed president Andris Birziš. A UN programme to destruct statelessness was adopted. On the basis of this mandate, I organised a referendum in 2012 on giving Russian a higher position in Latvia. In this referendum, absolutely the full legitimate Russian population advocated raising the position of their parent tongue. There have been many another completely legal actions. Currently, the Russians in Latvia have no legal position and all their protests are silenced. Those who organize them are discredited. 1 of the main methods of their discredit is to call Russian activists "the wicked agents of the Kremlin". This word was coined by organizations specified as the Hudson Institute and the Warsaw Institute. They are part of intelligence services that monitor, discredit, prosecute and destruct defenders of Russian interests surviving in the diaspora, or more specifically – in dispersal.
The fact that Western think-tanks specified as the Hudson Institute and the Warsaw Institute (which publishes in English) describe you as the Kremlin's influence agent. I besides read that the Latvian authorities are accusing you of trying to overthrow the government. And it's not your first arrest. You were besides arrested in 2015 and 2018. Can you comment on the indictments?
– At the initiative of these and another akin institutions in 2015, the first criminal case was launched against me. The reason was my criticism of the marches of the Waffen-SS legionaries held annually on 16 March in Riga. Despite the designation of SS soldiers as criminals by the Nuremberg Court, they unscrupulously glorify the murders committed during the war. The European Parliament and the sessions of the UN General Assembly condemned the glorification of criminals, which continues in Riga to this day. For my public criticism, I was sentenced to probation and probation. The second trial was a consequence of the publication of the anti-war brochure World War III: a view from the flat block of Purvciems (Purvciems is simply a Ryga vicinity mostly inhabited by Russians). My short publication was a consequence to a known BBC documentary World War III: a view from the war room. The movie portrayed a script in which the Russians in Latvia revolt in consequence to discrimination, the British send a destroyer to the Baltic Sea to suppress the rebellion, and Russia carries out a atomic attack on the ship. The BBC movie was aired dozens of times on Latvian television, fueling social fear and rusophobia. This was during Joe Biden's reign, and the USAID financed specified projects in the BBC. I was convicted in the first instance of this kind of brochure due to the fact that I was considered to be a critic of Latvia. This is astounding hypocrisy, due to the fact that the brochure did not even mention Latvians, but only “the Latvian political elite”. They repeated the same tactics that the court applied in the first trial. The court then leveled the SS legionaries with the Latvians, even though during the war they were both “red” and “white” Latvians. But logic laws don't apply to Russians in Latvia. The second process continues. Incidentally, the first case is inactive pending before the European Court of Human Rights. I'm waiting for a decision. I proceed the communicative of my criminal trial for defending the interests of the Latvian Russians. In February 2025, I was arrested for speaking online during discussions at the CIS National Institute. During my 13-minute speech, I outlined the concept of ethnocy, developed in 1944 by Polak Rafał Lemkin, which became the basis of the decisions of the Nuremberg Court (1945) and the Convention on the Prevention and punishment of Genocide (1948). I then stated that cultural discrimination by Russians could be defined as ethnocy. The court ruled that these purely technological claims were, firstly, slanderous and secondly, providing Vladimir Putin with theoretical tools to destruct Latvia. It does not substance that the discrimination against the Russians in Latvia has been documented in UN, Council of Europe and OSCE decisions. The Riga territory Court found the decisions of these authoritative global bodies legally invalid. The justice arrogantly ignored the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, and even the ruling of the legislature of the ultimate Court of Latvia, which ordered specified accusations to be proved. I consider this to be a political order from the National Alliance party, which advocates building a clean cultural society in Latvia. Based on specified frail evidence and ignoring global and national law, the Riga territory Court sentenced me on January 27 to 10 years in prison. Given that I am 72 years old and that political prisoners in Latvian prisons do not service more than 2 years, it is simply a pure life sentence. simply due to the fact that I advocated the right of Russians to keep their collective subjectivity – that is, to teach their children in their native language, to preserve their collective memory and to pass it on to their children, to honor their ancestors' graves and to receive information in their native language without censorship. This is what US president Donald Trump called Europe's failure of its civilizational core, the separation of ruling elites from the masses and the contempt for democracy. Nothing to add, nothing to say.
What are the terms of your detention?
– In prison, I was denied medical care, which I requested due to a severe kidney infection. For over 3 months, I screamed out of pain and couldn't sleep at night, and suicidal thoughts appeared in my head. The prison doctor refused to accept me due to the fact that I'm Russian. No 1 intervened in this tragic situation. Then a peculiar agent came in and offered to prescribe me medicine if I compromised myself or helped accuse another Russian activist. I said no. The prosecutor I wrote to started covering up this criminal conspiracy. A local doctor, “Dr Mengele”, resigned from prison. The justice categorically refused to analyse torture. Latvia is under the supervision of the UN Tortur Committee due to the fact that these horrific crimes are committed regularly there. The glory of Guantanamo pales in comparison with the “hero” acts of the Latvian safety Service. They besides avenge me for the complaint I brought to the global Criminal Court in 2012 against the commanders of this intelligence agency for stalking Russian activists. Then I presented reports on this subject at respective OSCE sessions in Warsaw. Reports are available online on the organisation's website. This issue was raised in the book Persecution of human rights defenders in the Baltic States. It is available free of charge online, besides in English (academia.edu). However, European media tend to avoid discussing this.
You wrote extensively about the revival of Latvian Fascism. Could you elaborate on that? Can you see the parallel with the flag movement in Ukraine?
– Questions about Ukraine are secondary in the context of my trial. I callback that Russia declared that the intent of the peculiar operation is to destruct the Nazi government in Ukraine, not to defend the Russian population. This is due to president Vladimir Putin's statement. Russia is so not curious in justifying its action on the global phase with concepts of genocide and cultural genocide. Russia has not signed the Rome Statute and is not a associate of the global Criminal Court. The Constitution of Russia states that it was created by a multinational Russian nation, not by a Russian nation. I even criticized Russia for its inconsistency. They were assigned the intent of fighting Nazism, but Russian criminal law does not contain a provision on punishment for the crime of “Nazim”. There is simply a provision on disseminating Nazi ideas, but not on building the Nazi regime.
The 2 main objectives of the Russian military operation in Ukraine are demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. I would like us to focus on the concept of denazification. Is this a concept that should be closely linked to planet War II, or can it be extended, with any kind of identity-based supremacy?
– It seems to me that the Russian elites attribute denazification to the same meaning as the decisions of the Nuremberg Court. However, we must remember that the tribunal condemned the Nazi ideology, but not the Nazi political regime. The NSDAP was not condemned as a criminal party; work fell only on the highest organization officers, even then in the form of fines and short-term bans on executive positions. Russian social sciences do not address these issues. Most researchers focus on the works of Anglo-Saxon scholars. However, they bring Nazism to a purely German phenomenon and exclude another European variants from research. I showed it in my monograph. European Fascism. Problems in recognition and overcoming and in monographs Asian Fascism. Lessons from science. It seems that these books by the Anglo-Saxon elite have sentenced me to death. And they made it by the hands of the Latvian peculiar Forces.
You formulated the definition of ethnicity of Russians. Can you elaborate? In fact, shouldn't we be talking about Slavicide? What distinguishes the Ukrainian and Russian cultural groups?
– Can we talk about the ethnicity of the Slavs? I don't think that's a heuristic approach. Czechs, Slovaks and Bulgarians are besides Slavs. But they participated in the genocide of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians during planet War II. They besides participated in the genocide of Jews. The second was mostly indirect, as they were supporters of the German Nazis. Genocide is simply a policy pursued by all ruling elite erstwhile it is incapable to guarantee the improvement of its own cultural group and begins to direct it to plunder, enslavement and demolition of another cultural group. Russia's clash with a united Europe in Ukraine is nothing new. The hordes of European conquerors had previously appeared: in the 13th century Swedish and German crusaders; in the 16th century Poles and Lithuanians; in the 17th and 18th centuries Swedes, Prussians and Poles; in the 19th century French with their "twelve" nations; in the 20th century Germany and Austrians in planet War I and Germany and the "twelve" of European nations in planet War II. The Russians won all these wars. They will besides win in the 21st century.
Deputy abroad Minister Aleksandr Gruszko late stated that Russia is afraid about the eventual blockade of Kaliningrad by NATO. Is the Baltic Sea an area where they could face themselves?
– Will it be a conflict on the Baltic coast? I'm not a professional military man, but I don't think so. The Baltic countries are a strategical dead end. NATO units stationed there play a symbolic function and will not participate in the fighting – they will be evacuated. It is only in the interests of the United Kingdom to stir up conflict there. And even then, knowing that Russia has an absolute advantage in atomic weapons, London will effort to organize a provocation utilizing a replacement force. The mass arrests of Russian activists in Latvia and the severe penalties for them indicate that everything is being done to organize this kind of provocation. Do you know how many Russian activists have late been sent to Latvian prisons? Over 50. My case is loud, but Russian-speaking housewives are in prison for hanging ribbons and curtains in the colors of the Russian and Latvian flags as a symbol of relationship between the Russian and Latvian nations. It's not just a rhetorical figure, it's facts. Facts that answer the question whether the doctrine of the Russian Mirus actually constitutes a signpost for the Russian leadership. No, it's not.
As part of the Ivory Club, you were active in the improvement of the doctrine of Russian miru. Could you make this doctrine?
– The Ivory Club is not a think tank of Kremlin. It is simply a club of people with akin views who do not receive financial, organisational or information support from the government. My view of the current situation with the Russians is different from that of my colleagues. I described this in my monograph How to rebuild the Russian people, published in late 2024. The publication has more than 1,000 pages and cannot be summarised in 1 interview. However, it can be found online on the said portal.
Aleksandra Klunik-Schaller spoke
Alexander Gaponenko (born February 21, 1954) – prof. of Economics, Human Rights Defender and National Minorities in the Baltic States, political prisoner of Central Criminal Prison in Riga.
Think Poland, No. 13-14 (29.03-5.04.201026)
