Soviets reported enlarging Baltic base for big buildup

June 16, 1982

The Soviet Navy is enlarging its base at Liyepaya, Latvia, as part of a massive program to strengthen its Baltic fleet, according to a Latvian emigre here.

The emigre, Atis Lejins, writes in the journal of the Swedish Institute for Foreign Affairs that the work at Liyepaya was so extensive it involved the transfer of the Soviet Union's second-largest fishing collective to a new site farther along the coast. The journal also reported the Soviet Union had 120 SS-4 and SS-5 theater nuclear missiles in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.