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Latvian television will stop broadcasting in Russian from September, 2021. For 30 years Russian-speaking viewers of Latvia have been able to watch programs in their native language on public television, financed from the state budget, but in the fall they will lose this opportunity, RIA Novosti reports.
The closure of broadcasting in Russian took place by the decision of the Latvian Electronic Media Council. Russian-language programs will bw shown on the Internet.
According to the editor-in-chief of Russian broadcasting, Ekaterina Safronova, news broadcasts in Russian are watched daily by 30,000-40,000 viewers, and Russian broadcasting is likely to lose a large share of the audience due to the forced transition to the Internet.
The Russian Foreign Ministry called the closure of Russian-language broadcasting "another act of incessant linguistic aggression", which the Latvian authorities are showing "against a significant part of their own population." The representative of the department, Maria Zakharova, recalled that about 40% of the country's residents prefer to communicate in Russian.
Russkiy Mir
