Victory Day in the Baltics: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

In Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, May 9 is just an ordinary workday. People in those countries who bring flowers or wear St. George ribbons to memorials to mark the day fascism was finally defeated risk being fined for displaying ‘prohibited symbols’ and violating regulations governing public events.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia officially declared that the Soviet period an ‘occupation’ and eliminated the Victory Day public holiday on May 9. Instead, ‘Europe Day’ is now observed on May 8 in Lithuania and Estonia, and in Latvia, all festive events marking May 9 were legally banned in 2023.

Step by step, the Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian authorities are erasing the memory of the Soviet people’s feat in defeating fascism: SS legionnaires and collaborators have been rebranded as ‘freedom fighters’, while Russian-speaking residents who object are labelled ‘disloyal’. The large-scale demolition of monuments that began in 1990–1991 has entered a new phase. Since 2022, dozens of memorials – from the T-34 tank in Narva to the Monument to the Liberators of Riga – have fallen under laws banning the “glorification of the Soviet regime.”

But memory does not disappear. Natives of the Baltic states gather for the Immortal Regiment March in Ivangorod, Russia. In 2025, the Saved Europe park opened in Kaliningrad, featuring miniature re-creations of the Soviet war memorials destroyed in the Baltics. Victory Day continues to live on in the hearts of people who, despite the bans, preserve family histories and pass on to their children the memory of those who liberated their cities from Nazism.

Watch “Victory Day in the Baltics: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" on RTD website and on RT’s live feed. The time of the broadcast is available on RT’s schedule page.