The head of the Latvian regulator that revoked Dozhd's license wrote in 2014 that Ukraine "will not be a stable and democratic state"

Ivars Āboliņš, the head of the National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP) of Latvia, which revoked the Dozhd TV channel's broadcasting license in the country, wrote tweets criticizing Ukraine and praising Putin in 2013-2014. This was noticed by social media users, writes the Latvian publication Rus.Tvnet.

The publication published screenshots of several of Abolins' tweets. In July 2013, he wrote: "Whatever Putin is like, he holds Russia together, protects it from chaos."

In January 2014, Āboliņš tweeted: "In general, Latvia should send money to Yanukovych and pray to God that Ukraine does not come closer to the EU. What are we going to do here with a million-strong crowd of Russian speakers?"

On February 21, 2014, Āboliņš tweeted that "no normal regulation is possible in Ukraine," and on February 28, he said: "In my opinion, it is normal to think first about our own interests and the interests of Latvia. The outcome for Ukraine is bad for us in any case. Ukraine will not be a stable and democratic state."

The Russian publication The Insider noted that on March 18, 2014, the day the annexation of Crimea was formally completed, Abolins praised Russian President Vladimir Putin's speech , calling it "simply excellent." "All the Western combed zeros can go to rest. Unfortunately," he added.

As Rus.Tvnet notes, at the time of publication of these tweets, Āboliņš did not work at NEPLP. He joined in January 2017 and was appointed to the post of head of the council in December 2019.

The head of NEPLP himself confirmed in a comment to Rus.Tvnet that he had written such tweets, but apologized for them and said that he no longer held such views. "These tweets in no way reflect my opinion anymore. I based my tweets at that time on the information available at the time. This opinion was wrong and absolutely does not agree with my current position," said Āboliņš.

At the time of publication of this news, only posts from September 2015 are available on his Twitter.

• Dozhd was blocked in Russia shortly after the war in Ukraine began and was forced to cease operations. By June, Dozhd had received a license to broadcast in Latvia, where many of the channel's journalists had moved. In July, the channel announced that it would resume broadcasting.
• In December, it became known that the Latvian authorities had claims against Dozhd. It was fined for the lack of a Latvian-language audio track, the map of Crimea as part of the Russian Federation shown on air, and the words "our army" in relation to the Russian Armed Forces. But the biggest resonance was caused by the words of the presenter Alexei Korostelev that the channel "was able to help" the Russian military.
• On December 2, Dozhd announced the dismissal of Korostelev, calling his words a slip of the tongue and apologizing for them. On December 6, NEPLP announced that it was revoking the channel's broadcast license. Dozhd said that it would continue working on YouTube. The journalists called the accusations against them "unfair and absurd."