Andrejs Mamikins is a Latvian politician and an ex-member of the European Parliament. Before his election, Mamikins was a journalist for several Latvian Russian-language newspapers and television channels. He has been engaged in numerous pro-Kremlin activities in Latvia and beyond, in special attempts to deny Latvia for its integration policies towards the Russian-speaking minority and encourage Russian interpretations of contemporary history.
In September 2023, the State Security Service (VDD) stated it had started criminal proceedings against the former politician and MEP Andrejs Mamikina for allegedly promoting and justifying the crimes perpetrated by the aggressor state Russia in Ukraine. Mamikins, who performed as a TV journalist before taking up politics, has a long history of pro-Russian chauvinism, including an infamous trip to a Russian airbase in Syria while acting as an MEP.
“The criminal process against A. Mamikins has been started under Article 74.1 of the Criminal Law after the service evaluated the person’s recent statements in the broadcasts of several Russian television channels loyal to the Kremlin and on social networking sites. VDD has found that statements of A. Mamikins, in the assessment of the service, support and glorify the war started by Russia in Ukraine,”
stated the VDD in a brief statement.
In 2020 Mamikins, alongside his party associates Tatjana Ždanoka and Miroslavs Mitrofanovs, was included in the European Platform for Democratic Elections database of “biased observers” for supporting refuted and rigged elections in Russia and occupied Ukraine. In mid-2014 Mamikins filed his statement of financial interests in the European Parliament in Russian, which was promptly rejected because Russian is not an official language of the European Union. Mamikins posted the incident on social media, creating waves in the Latvian Russian community.
In December 2016 Mamikins sat with President of Syria Bashar al-Assad and parliamentary speaker Hadley Abbas and visited the Khmeimim Air Base along with five other MEPs and spokespeople of the Russian Federation’s Federal Council of the Federal Assembly. The visit was criticised by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia Edgars Rinkēvičs and Security Police Chief Normunds Mežviets.
In September 2023, he with his family moved to Russia for permanent residence. Since the full-scale Russian attack on Ukraine, Mamikins has evolved as a pro-Russian propagandist on social media and Russian state-controlled television, expressing support for the invasion, denying the Bucha massacre and blaming the removal of Soviet monuments in Latvia.
