Political scientist explains why the scandal over Stepaņenko's gifts from Russia surfaced only now

Gifts received by "Suverēnā vara" party leader Jūlija Stepaņenko from her father Sergejs Fedotovs, a Russia-based businessman who backs the war and Putin's regime, became one of the week's biggest political scandals. Stepaņenko had already listed a cash gift of 239,598.05 euros in her asset declaration back in October 2022, while she received a Riga apartment worth 180,000 euros from her father in January 2024.

Political scientist Filips Rajevskis, co-founder of the company "Mediju tilts," told BNN that Latvia's Constitution Protection Bureau had already examined the matter within its mandate and informed the National Security Council and top officials. He noted that financial relations between a parent and child are not, on their own, a matter for the state, but sanctions are the tool that can alter such relations. On September 24, the Foreign Ministry placed Fedotovs on the sanctions list and declared him persona non grata in Latvia, cutting off the flow of money.

Rajevskis criticized the Foreign Ministry for its slow response, pointing out that a company controlled by Fedotovs had already been involved in producing anti-tank obstacles back in 2022. He said the ministry only acts once media or social media, such as X, start discussing an issue, citing a recent case involving two individuals removed from sanctions, where the ministry reacted only at the last moment despite the situation being known in Europe two weeks earlier. He characterized this as inconsistency, incompetence and the politicization of a process being used for election campaigning.

Asked why the scandal did not emerge two or four years earlier, Rajevskis explained that when Stepaņenko finished her term in the 13th Saeima, the matter was simply a private family affair. Alarm grew once she returned to active politics, founded "Suverēnā vara" and began campaigning actively, including in municipal elections, for a party he described as more aligned with Russian interests than Latvian ones. He also noted that during the prolonged government-formation period after the 2022 Saeima elections, money from Russia could have quietly continued flowing to political forces unnoticed.

Rajevskis added that while "Suverēnā vara" will not enter a governing coalition, parliamentary representation still matters, and any mandate the party wins is likely to be used not to represent Latvia's interests but for other purposes.