Just How Many Russians Are in the Baltic Countries? 🇪🇪🇱🇻🇱🇹🇷🇺
#Estonia #Latvia #Lithuania #Russia #Baltic #Geopolitics
The Latvian government recently said that it was requiring approximately 20,000 residents who opted for Russian passports after renouncing their Latvian-issued ones to take a Latvian language test - this being symbolic of a growing distrust of Russians living in the three Baltic states after the war in Ukraine began.
But how many Russians actually live in the Baltic states, and why?
Well, as of 2021, there were nearly 900,000 ethnic Russians in the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
More specifically, 25% of Estonia’s population, 25% of Latvia’s population, and 5% of Lithuania’s population are ethnically Russian or Russian speaking.
This amounts to approximately 200,000, 500,000, and 140,000 people in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania respectively.
As for why they are there - the majority of today's Baltic Russians are descendants of migrants who arrived during the Soviet period, while a smaller segment has roots in the region that go back several centuries.
