Belarusian section on Latvia’s LSM+ website under threat?

The man­age­ment of Latvia’s pub­lic media out­let, LSM, has devel­oped strate­gic pri­or­i­ties for 2026–2029. The Belaru­sian-lan­guage ver­sion of the site appears like­ly to last only until the end of this year, as Belaru­sian is not even men­tioned in the new strat­e­gy.

The Belaru­sian ver­sion of LSM+ is still run­ning — but for how long?

Latvi­jas Radio 4 in its cur­rent for­mat will con­tin­ue until the end of 2025. Plans include dis­con­tin­u­ing the LSM+ plat­form and remov­ing edi­to­r­i­al divi­sions based on lan­guage. 

On July 31, the Pub­lic Elec­tron­ic Media Coun­cil (SEPLP) approved the strate­gic pri­or­i­ties for 2026–2029 pro­posed by LSM’s man­age­ment. The new strat­e­gy will take effect in Jan­u­ary 2026.

Accord­ing to the doc­u­ment, con­tent in for­eign lan­guages — Eng­lish, Russ­ian, and Ukrain­ian — will be cre­at­ed and dis­trib­uted exclu­sive­ly in dig­i­tal for­mats. Does this mean the Belaru­sian sec­tion of LSM+ will effec­tive­ly be shut down start­ing next year?

What’s the context?

Just a month ago, Alex Kras­nit­sky, the LSM+ por­tal group super­vis­ing edi­tor, told the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) about how and why the Belaru­sian-lan­guage ver­sion of the site was cre­at­ed.

LSM+, Latvia’s group of pub­lic media por­tals, launched the Belaru­sian ver­sion of its site in 2023.

“With­in the core LSM edi­to­r­i­al team, which main­ly oper­ates in the state lan­guage, Lat­vian, there was a desire to cre­ate con­tent in mul­ti­ple lan­guages. The arti­cles read­ers see aren’t just in Belaru­sian — they are pub­lished simul­ta­ne­ous­ly in three lan­guages. This approach not only allows Belaru­sians to engage with their own community’s issues but also intro­duces these con­cerns to Lat­vian- and Russ­ian-speak­ing audi­ences, help­ing to ele­vate them to gov­ern­ment and polit­i­cal atten­tion. For exam­ple, there is a par­lia­men­tary group sup­port­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic Belarus in our Saeima,” Kras­nit­sky explained.

He even shared plans for expand­ing the Belaru­sian sec­tion:

“This year, we intend to allo­cate a bud­get for a full-time Belaru­sian edi­tor who will be ful­ly inte­grat­ed into the core edi­to­r­i­al team. Hope­ful­ly, this will enable us to broad­en our con­tent offer­ings. Until now, we’ve relied on free­lancers who have become almost like fam­i­ly and are always avail­able. They’re will­ing to cov­er any impor­tant event affect­ing Belaru­sians, such as the recent ban on prop­er­ty pur­chas­es by Belaru­sian cit­i­zens.”

What went wrong?

With the adop­tion of the new strate­gic pri­or­i­ties, the Pub­lic Elec­tron­ic Media Coun­cil (SEPLP) aims for “a sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion in Russ­ian-lan­guage con­tent and an increase in resources allo­cat­ed to cre­at­ing new con­tent in Lat­vian. It is expect­ed that rep­re­sen­ta­tives of nation­al minori­ties will increas­ing­ly turn to con­tent in the state lan­guage.”

The Belaru­sian ver­sion of the site has been cre­at­ed by free­lancers for about a year, which involves a rel­a­tive­ly small bud­get, so it is unlike­ly that these changes will save funds for the devel­op­ment of Lat­vian-lan­guage media.

Why, then, is the Belaru­sian lan­guage not men­tioned at all in the strate­gic pri­or­i­ties for 2026–2029? Offi­cial rea­sons have not been giv­en, but Lat­vian col­leagues who agreed to speak off the record sug­gest pos­si­ble expla­na­tions.

Deputies urge to protect the Belarusian editorial team

The future of the Belaru­sian sec­tion of LSM+ remains uncer­tain and dif­fi­cult to fore­see.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Belaru­sians in Latvia Supol­ka, the Lat­vian Soci­ety of Belaru­sian Cul­ture Svi­tanak, and the Ita Kaza­ke­vich Asso­ci­a­tion of Nation­al Cul­tur­al Soci­eties of Latvia have sent a spe­cial let­ter to deputies of the par­lia­men­tary group sup­port­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic Belarus, call­ing for the preser­va­tion of the Belaru­sian sec­tion of LSM.

The Belaru­sian sec­tion of LSM, formed by Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists who left the coun­try for polit­i­cal rea­sons, has become a key infor­ma­tion resource for the Belaru­sian dias­po­ra com­mit­ted to demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues. It oppos­es Krem­lin pro­pa­gan­da, includ­ing dis­man­tling the stereo­type that “Belaru­sians are just a vari­ety of Rus­sians.”

The Belaru­sian edi­to­r­i­al team has become a plat­form for unit­ing Belaru­sians in Latvia and sup­ports their adap­ta­tion and inte­gra­tion into Lat­vian soci­ety.

“Main­tain­ing the Belaru­sian lan­guage and the edi­to­r­i­al staff at the lev­el of a nation­al pub­lic media out­let sends a pow­er­ful and inspir­ing sig­nal to the awak­ened Belaru­sian nation, which strives for nation­al iden­ti­ty, espe­cial­ly on the eve of the fifth anniver­sary of the August 2020 protests,” the letter’s authors believe.