Commenting on today's decision by the Latvian committee on the assessment of damage from the Soviet Communist occupational regime to develop its own method of assessment, the Russian diplomat said, "I would call such actions a sort of fancy arithmetic without any practical application."
"Unfortunately, such statements might add additional tension to Russian-Latvian relations," he added.
Following this rationale, Russian might demand compensation from Latvia for enterprises and infrastructure it had built in the former Soviet republic after World War II, Chizhov said.
"Estonia and Lithuania are trying to assess the damage from the occupation since the beginning of the 1990s, and Latvia is sending a delegation to both countries to borrow from their experience," Edmund Stankevich, the head of the Latvian assessment committee said.
Latvian State Archive officials who attended the meeting of the committee offered to provide all necessary documents, including those from 1941, to "calculate the number of victims of repression and deportation, and mass graves."
On May 12, 2005, the Latvian parliament, the Seim, adopted a declaration condemning the Soviet totalitarian communist regime. Following the declaration, the Latvian government created a committee to assess the damages to the country and the number of victims of deportation.
The declaration demanded the repatriation of former Soviet officers and instructed the Cabinet to conclude a treaty with Russia on assistance to the repatriated officers and their families.
In addition, the declaration insisted that the Latvian government should support the demands to Moscow to provide compensation for damages to Latvian citizens and the country as a whole, and to return the archives taken from Latvia during the occupation because Russia was the political and legal successor of the former Soviet Union.
"Russia's assessment of the June 1940 events is well known and immutable," Russian foreign ministry officials have said in response to such demands. "There are no grounds for compensation claims."
