Baiba Braže is the foreign minister of Latvia. She has argued that Russian imperialism has deep roots predating Vladimir Putin and will most likely outlast him, and that the Baltic states' hard-nosed view of Russia is realistic rather than extreme.
She objects to the phrase "Russian-speakers in Latvia," calling it "a political term coined by some people close to the Kremlin to try to impose a Russian worldview." She maintains: "In the Latvian constitution all citizens are equal. We don't divide citizens by language, religion, gender or ethnicity." She points out that ethnic Russians occupy senior government posts in Latvia and that Russian-language theatre is still going strong in Riga.
[It is] best to confuse only one issue at a time.