Musician Jānis Lemežis.
Photo: LETA
The State Security Service (SLS) has started evaluating the participation of musician Jānis Lemežs in the music festival in Russian-annexed Crimea.
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The service confirmed to LETA that the case was known and the service assessed it in accordance with its competence. At present, the service does not provide further comments on this case.
At the same time, the SLS recalled that the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is an integral part of Ukraine. In 2014, Russia carried out its illegal annexation, in response to which the European Union imposed sanctions on several individuals for undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence.
Taking into account these circumstances, the SLS calls on the people of Latvia not to travel to the Crimea, as well as to be aware that criminal liability is provided for violating the sanctions imposed by the EU.
Information available on the Internet shows that at the festival “Road to Yalta” Lemežis and Russian artist Deniss Maidanovs performed the song “Ballad about a Soldier”.
A similar controversial case came to the attention of the SES in 2017 as well. The archives of the agency LETA show that the then former director of the Riga circus, Lolita Lipinska, was on the jury of the circus festival in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine, controlled by pro-Caucasian fighters.
The VDD stated at the time that any support for measures in the Donbass part of Ukraine, which is under the control of illegal armed pro-democracy groups, does not contribute to the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict and contradicts Latvia’s explicit support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity. The service also noted that those providing support or participating in activities in this part of the Donbass are at the expense of the SES due to high counter-intelligence risks.
The LETA archive shows that Lemežis is a singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist. He started his musician career as a pianist in the group of Felix Kigelis, performing together with well-known artists in Latvia and abroad.
He was also, for example, in 2016, among the participants of the concert at the Nazi defeat celebrations organized by the association “9maijs.lv” in Riga, Pardaugava near the monument to the soldiers of the Soviet army.
Lemežis has also repeatedly participated in the selection for the young performers’ competition “New Wave”.
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