Latvia’s Foreign Ministry reportedly moves to declare Russian journalist Leonid Ragozin persona non grata
Latvia’s Foreign Ministry has begun the process of declaring “another Russian citizen” persona non grata, Foreign Ministry head Baiba Braže said. She said the decision followed consultations with the Internal Affairs Minister and the prime minister and was based on information “from the competent authorities.”
Delfi reported that the case concerns Russian journalist Leonid Ragozin, who has lived in Latvia since 2014. Ragozin worked as a correspondent and producer for BBC Russia and as an editor of the magazine Russian Newsweek, and has more recently worked with Al Jazeera, Lonely Planet, Jacobin, and The American Conservative.
The independent Russian news outlet Mediazona said that in one of his recent pieces, Ragozin wrote that “Russians see the West as a greater threat than their own authoritarian government,” and accused the West of impeding a diplomatic settlement to the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Jānis Dombrava, the head of Latvia’s Internal Affairs Ministry, said in September 2026 that Ragozin’s statements “contradict the interests of the Latvian state” and called on the Foreign Ministry to declare the journalist persona non grata. The minister said Ragozin had argued that sanctions against Russia were ineffective and blamed the West for Moscow’s aggressive actions.
This is far from the first time Latvia has declared Russians persona non grata. In 2022 alone, the country’s Foreign Ministry added Russians to the list four times, declaring a total of 167 people undesirable persons.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Latvia has declared numerous Russian actors, musicians, cultural figures, and journalists persona non grata, including TV hosts Yekaterina Andreeva, Tina Kandelaki, and Dmitry Gubernyev.
Also in 2022, Latvia blacklisted Alexey Korostelev, a journalist with the independent Russian broadcaster TV Rain, over his comments about mobilized Russians. Korostelev, who worked from Georgia without a Latvian residence permit, was banned from entering the country. TV Rain fired him after the scandal, and Latvia revoked the channel’s broadcast license, a decision a court later overturned.
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