Baltic States Commemorate 30 Years Since Russian Troop Withdrawal

Estonia and Latvia commemorated the 30th anniversary of the withdrawal of Russian troops from the two Baltic states with various events on August 31. In the Estonian capital, Tallinn, President Alar Karis, and in the Latvian capital, Riga, his Latvian counterpart Edgars Rinkrvics highlighted the symbolic, political, and legal significance of the events three decades ago. Both heads of state emphasized that without the troop withdrawal, neither genuine independence nor the path to the 2004 accession to the European Union and NATO defense alliance would have been possible. With the troop withdrawal, half a century of Russian military presence in the Baltics came to an end, a year after Russian forces had already withdrawn from Lithuania.