In another sign that Vladimir Putin’s ambitions do not stop with the Donbas region of Ukraine as his American admirers would have you believe, the Latvian national security services started a criminal investigation into a Latvian member of the European Parliament believed to be a Russian spy, the Associated Press reports.

After some very brave journalists in Latvia, Estonia, Sweden and particularly in Russia published uncovered communications between 73-year-old Tatjana Ždanoka and her Russian handlers, the Latvian federal security service started criminal proceedings against her on February 22nd, alleging she had been an agent for the FSB, Russia’s spy agency, since 2004.

Ždanoka has been an outspoken advocate for the minority Russian populations in Latvia and Estonia, claiming they are being oppressed by the ethnic majority populations in each nation.  Communications with her handlers allegedly show some of those themes being coordinated with Kremlin efforts to sow unrest within those enclaves.  The claim of oppression by Russian populations in Ukraine was one of the excuses the Kremlin has used to take Ukrainian territory. 

Russia has frequently threatened the three Baltic states, all former members of the USSR, amassing troops along its borders with Estonia and Latvia while staging troops and equipment in the Kaliningrad enclave on the Baltic Sea that borders Latvia.  In the months after Donald Trump’s inauguration–as Trump downplayed US involvement in NATO–the Kremlin increased the number of troops in Kaliningrad, while simultaneously running a propaganda campaign to convince people that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were all historically part of one nation–Russia–just as it did with Ukraine.