Latvija in brief

LATVIAN KILLED IN ACTION IN DONBASS

The first militant from Latvia fighting for Russian-backed terrorists in Ukraine has likely been killed in action, according to information published on web-sites covering the Ukraine conflict. The website psb4ukr.org, which gathers information on foreign mercenaries fighting in the Ukraine conflict, informed its readers that a militant by the name of Kushnir Rodion, who also calls himself Deniss Morozovs on social networking websites, has been killed.

According to a social networking website, this person’s home address is in Riga, and his profile includes pictures of himself in the Latvian capital, as well as in the Donbass, where he can be seen posing in photos with weapons. His name has also been published in the ‘’gruz200.net’’ web-site, which gathers information about Russian soldiers and mercenaries killed, injured or captured in the Ukraine conflict.

According to information available on these websites, Rodions claimed to be a volunteer from Latvia and was part of the Vostok battalion. He apparently died on Jan. 21 from a bullet wound.

COOL RUNNINGS
    
January was a magnificent month for the Dukurs family, with Latvia’s Martins Dukurs winning the season’s fifth Skeleton World Cup stage at the St Moritz track in Switzerland on Jan. 23, and his Martins’ brother Tomass Dukurs finishing in overall fifth place, 1.33 seconds behind his older brother. This was followed up by an extraordinary win for the The Latvia-1 four-man bobsleigh team piloted by Oskars Melbardis, who won gold at this year’s European Bobsleigh Championships today.

The Russian rival bobsleigh team piloted by Alexander Kasyanov, but they finished in overall second place, 0.28 seconds behind Melbardis; while the German bobsleigh team, piloted by Francesco Friedrich, finished in overall third place, a whopping 0.52 seconds behind Melbardis.

The Latvia-2 four-man bob team piloted by Oskars Kibermanis finished in overall 7th place, 1.24 second behind Melbardis.
In the season’s six Bobsleigh World Cup stages so far, the Latvia-1 bobsleigh team has finished on the podium at each stage, winning three of them.