Context: In 2025, Latvian border guards intercepted nearly 12,000 attempts to cross the border illegally from the Belarusian side, twice as many as last year. Latvia does not plan to lift the heightened control regime in border areas until mid-2026 due to the threat of illegal migration.
Latvian blogger Solomon Bernshtein (real name Konstantin Rudakov), who moved to Belarus, said on the air of Radio Minsk on December 2, 2025, that Latvia allegedly does not take citizens’ views into account on the use of the Russian language.
“The Latvian plebiscite is like a Russian riot — bloody and pointless. …Up to the point when society raised the issue of Russian schools and Russian-speaking people and did manage to collect the required number of signatures…” the blogger began, but did not finish his thought.
“So there was a referendum?” host Alyona Rodovskaya interrupted him.
“There was a referendum! It took place, and it gathered the required number of votes. But it was just a legislative initiative. No one is obligated to… That is, powers that be aren't required to put an approving signature on it or give it the green light. The matter went to the Saeima, Latvia’s parliament, and at the very first reading it was neatly shut down. That’s it. That’s where it all ended,” Bernshtein concluded.
In 2011, the public organization “Rodnoy Yazyk” (Native Language) did collect about 12,500 signatures in support of granting Russian language official status and submitted them to the Central Election Commission to organize a referendum on the issue. Under Latvian law, 10,000 signatures are sufficient to demonstrate strong public interest in an issue. The next stage is that the Central Election Commission announces another round of signature collection. To amend the legislation, signatures from 10% of all voters, or about 150,000 people, are required. If an initiative is supported by the required number of citizens, it is sent to the Saeima. Lawmakers may approve it without a referendum.
The Saeima did not support the proposal to grant Russian language official status, so the issue was put to a referendum, where 75% of voters opposed it. Under Latvia’s Constitution, the results of a referendum are binding. So it was Latvians themselves, not the Saeima, who settled the issue.
In 2018, the Latvian Russian Union tried to initiate another referendum — this time on preserving education in the Russian language. However, the Central Election Commission ruled that the initiative contradicted the Constitution and rejected it. Since 2021, following a school reform, upper-grade students have been taught in Latvian.
This is not the first fake by Bernshtein debunked by the Weekly Top Fake team. In 2024, during an appearance on the Belarus 1 television program “Skazhi ne Molchi” (“Speak Up”), he claimed that no secret protocols to the nonaggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had existed.