ABSTRACT
On May 14, 1940, Ladas Natkevicius, the Lithuanian minister in Moscow, informed Soviet officials in Moscow of the suicide of a soldier named Butayev who was stationed in Lithuania. Colonel General Alexander D Loktionov, a candidate member of the Central Committee and commandant of the Baltic military district, met with Urbsys and gave him further details about the disappearances, which included another soldier, M. Pisarev. Among the Baltic countries, Latvia, the next country to receive a Soviet ultimatum, had the least stressful relationship with Moscow during this period. Its most serious difficulty was discord in the government between President Ulmanis and his vice-president and minister of war, General Janis Balodis. However, continued German successes in Europe and signs of change in Soviet attitudes toward its Baltic neighbors prompted more protective action by the Latvian government. In Tallinn, a Baltic Week "organized annually by cultural, economic and social organizations" from the Baltic states had just opened.
