(61,3% of residents) and those, who speak Russian at home (37,7%). About one per cent of the population speak Belarusian, Ukrainian, Polish, Lithuanian and other languages. So, 38,7% of Latvian residents speak the languages of national minorities at home. Parents have the right to demand that from their taxes the state provides education in the language, in which they raise their children. I am well aware that today around the world the word ‘Russian’ is associated not with the Russian minority in Latvia, but with the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This monstrous association with the invasion dramatically complicates the protection of the rights of the Russianspeaking minority in the Baltic States, and in Latvia in particular. I believe that what the current leadership has done to the Russian Federation is a catastrophe, the scope of which is not yet comprehended neither in Russia itself, nor abroad. It dealt a fatal blow to the reputation of the Russians and other Soviet people, deserved by sacrifice of their grandparents, who together with British, American 2 (5)