and certainly not outside of ukraine. prime minister karins, i m very grateful to you for joining me on hardtalk. thank you. hello there. for many, this weekend shaped up to be a tale of two halves. the north of england on saturday was cloudy, grey and wet with a couple of inches of rain falling. but on sunday, just take a look at leeds, just shy of 13 hours of sunshine here. i suspect there s going to be more rain in the forecast, however, today, with this area of low pressure and the fronts pushing in from the west. now, some of that rain
prime minister kristjanis karins, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. vladimir putin s invasion of ukraine happened six months ago. right now, here in latvia, has that war raised the level of fear to new heights? what the war has done has raised the level of mobilisation. so the first effect was the mobilisation from the grassroots, people rallying to the support of ukraine citizens, ordinary people coming together, asking, what can we do to help ukraine? and we ve had a mass outpouring of. we have communities making camouflage nets, we have people providing medications, companies donating all sorts of vehicles, donating all sorts
but you are the prime minister. you oversee a government which is committed to maintaining sanctions on russia. you say you are going to stop using russian gas. but at the same time, you acknowledge that you re still receiving russian gas how can this be? because the law is passed that we will not, and you cannot receive russian gas afterjanuary one. you currently cannot pay for any russian gas in roubles, and no company is doing that. we also have a financial sector which is making sure no rouble payments are being made. there are traders who are finding a different way through, apparently offshore companies that are still having some. and you haven t stopped them? we have not stopped them because the law says and that s passed by parliament, not the government the law says january one. there are other ways around this, aren t there? you could continue to take gas from hungary. hungary is, as it s made it clear, going to continue to receive energy supplies from russia. so that w
welcome to hardtalk, i m stephen sackur. and this is riga, the capital of the small baltic state of latvia, which was liberated from moscow s rule some three decades ago, and which is now braced for a new era of confrontation with russia. vladimir putin s invasion of ukraine reminded latvians of the russian threat. it also stoked internal tensions because a quarter of latvia s population is ethnic russian, and this country relies heavily on russian gas supplies. well, my guest today is latvia s prime minister, kristjanis karins. just how vulnerable is latvia?
welcome to hardtalk, i m stephen sackur. and this is riga, the capital of the small baltic state of latvia, which was liberated from moscow s rule some three decades ago, and which is now braced for a new era of confrontation with russia. vladimir putin s invasion of ukraine reminded latvians of the russian threat. it also stoked internal tensions because a quarter of latvia s population is ethnic russian, and this country relies heavily on russian gas supplies. well, my guest today is latvia s prime minister, kristjanis karins. just how vulnerable is latvia?