Russian journalist expelled from Latvia after 12 years without explanation

Russian journalist Leonid Ragozin has been declared persona non grata by the Latvian authorities and expelled from the country he’s lived in for over a decade, he revealed on Wednesday in a post on X.

“I can now confirm that yesterday I was notified of my expulsion from Latvia where I lived for 12 years,” Ragozin wrote, adding that he had already left the country. Though no “specific misdemeanours or statements which prompted the decision” were provided by the authorities, Ragozin called the decision the “long-brewing revenge” of various far-right politicians whose activities he has investigated over the years.

Normally only given to diplomats, persona non grata designations in Latvia cannot be challenged in court, Ragozin noted, adding that he believed he was “facing political persecution” and that the status was chosen specifically to deny him recourse to justice.

“For me it is a huge personal tragedy. I am being evicted from my only beloved home, deprived of my circle of friendship and support. I love Latvia, the land of my ethnic Latvian ancestors, and have no sense of revenge,” he wrote, vowing that he would “always remain pro-Latvian”.

“It makes me immensely sad that high positions in the Latvian government have been captured by forces whose closest political relation is Putin and who are using Putin’s aggression in Ukraine as a pretext for eroding the rule of law and democracy in the European Union,” Ragozin continued.

A fierce critic of Putin and the war in Ukraine, Ragozin has over the course of his career been a BBC correspondent, editor of Russian Newsweek, and a contributor to multiple other outlets including Al Jazeera, Lonely Planet, Jacobin and The American Conservative.

Though dozens of independent Russian media outlets — including Novaya Gazeta Europe — relocated to Latvia following the invasion of Ukraine, Russian journalists who voice unpopular opinions can still face disproportionate backlash in their adopted country.

Ragozin experienced that backlash first hand in 2022, when Latvian Defence Minister Artis Pabriks accused him of spreading Russian propaganda narratives. Ragozin later said the minister’s comments were likely retaliation for an investigative piece he'd written three years earlier connecting Latvia’s National Alliance party to British and Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups.

Warning that punishing journalists so severely for simply expressing their opinion was a page taken from the Kremlin’s own playbook, Ragozin called the move “new and welcome material for Kremlin propaganda”, which, he said, attempts to portray the Baltic states ”as tyrannies not democracies”.

“What it all reminds me of most is Putin's Russia,” Ragozin continued. “It illustrates Europe's slow drift towards the political regime that is so familiar to all of us who fled that country.”