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it also stoked internal tensions because a quarter of latvia s population is ethnic russian, and this country relies heavily on russian gas supplies. well, my guest today is latvia s prime minister, kristjanis karins. just how vulnerable is latvia? prime minister kristjanis karins, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. vladimir putin s invasion of ukraine happened six months ago. right now, here in latvia, has that war raised the level of fear to new heights? what the war has done has raised the level of mobilisation. so the first effect was the mobilisation from the grassroots, people rallying to the support of ukraine citizens, ordinary people coming together, asking, what can we do to help ukraine? and we ve had a mass outpouring of. we have communities making camouflage nets, we have people providing medications, companies donating all sorts of vehicles, donating all sorts of humanitarian aid, blankets, you name it, that has been going on. people donating cash and n ....
planted on his car but he escaped assassination after switching vehicles, following an event outside moscow. now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur and this is riga, the capital of the small baltic state of latvia, which was liberated from moscow s rule some three decades ago and which is now braced for a new era of confrontation with russia. vladimir putin s invasion of ukraine reminded latvians of the russian threat. it also stoked internal tensions because a quarter of latvia s population is ethnic russian and this country relies heavily on russian gas supplies. well, my guest today is latvia s prime minister, krisjanis karins. just how vulnerable is latvia? prime minister krisjanis karins, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. vladimir putin s invasion of ukraine happened six months ago. right now, here in latvia, has that war raised the level of fear to new heights? what the war has done has raised the level of mobilisation. so the first eff ....
welcome to hardtalk, i m stephen sackur. and this is riga, the capital of the small baltic state of latvia, which was liberated from moscow s rule some three decades ago, and which is now braced for a new era of confrontation with russia. vladimir putin s invasion of ukraine reminded latvians of the russian threat. it also stoked internal tensions because a quarter of latvia s population is ethnic russian, and this country relies heavily on russian gas supplies. well, my guest today is latvia s prime minister, kristjanis karins. just how vulnerable is latvia? prime minister kristjanis karins, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. vladimir putin s invasion of ukraine happened six months ago. right now, here in latvia, has that war raised the level of fear to new heights? what the war has done has raised the level of mobilisation. so the first effect was the mobilisation from the grassroots, people rallying to the support of ukraine citizens, ordinary people coming together, ....
But you ve been in power for, what, the best part of four years? you ve done nothing, really, to address that. not true. we have. our biggest infrastructural asset in the energy field is an underground storage facility in latvia which can hold about two years of our own supply. from 1997, that has been under the control of gazprom. my government now has taken a majority stake, controlled, gazprom is completely out. we have a japanese company as a minority investor. we took over our main energy asset. last year, we were 90% russian gas dependent. 2023, we will be 0% gas dependent. well, hang on. let me stop you there. you say by 2023. something strange is happening with regard to gas in latvia because, at the very end ofjuly, gazprom announced that they were ceasing all supplies to a whole bunch of countries, including latvia. only five days later, it was reliably reported here that latvia once again ....