Abstract
This presentation examines how Russian-speaking communities in Latvia have increasingly been framed through a security lens since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It focuses on post-2022 political and policy discourse and shows how questions of belonging, loyalty, and risk have been rearticulated in everyday governance, including at the municipal level.
Drawing on selected examples from language policy and media governance, the analysis demonstrates how security considerations have come to outweigh earlier integration-oriented approaches. Particular attention is paid to the growing tendency to conflate the actions of the Russian Federation with the domestic realities of Latvia’s diverse Russian-speaking population. As noted by the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities in its 2024 Opinion on Latvia, public discourse does not always clearly distinguish between external geopolitical threats and national minority communities.
The presentation argues that this security-driven framing risks normalising collective suspicion toward Russian-speaking residents regardless of individual political views or civic conduct. These dynamics have direct implications for public participation at the local level, as they shape trust, legitimacy, and the conditions under which minority citizens engage with municipal institutions and everyday forms of civic involvement.