SAVICKIS AND OTHERS v. LATVIA JUDGMENT Furthermore, while before the Court the Government tried to distinguish the two cases on the basis of residence, such a distinction had not been made under domestic law. Even now only work carried out for local Latvian enterprises was regarded as “employment in Latvia”. 161. The applicants also submitted that their situation with respect to bilateral agreements was very similar to that of Ms Andrejeva. The Agreement between the Republic of Latvia and Ukraine regarding Cooperation within the Field of Social Security had taken effect prior to Ms Andrejeva bringing her case before the Court, and her pension had been recalculated ex nunc; on the other hand, the agreement with Russia had not entered into force before her death. In Andrejeva, the Government’s objection concerning victim status had been raised belatedly; however, the Court had expressed its position concerning the bilateral agreements by stating that a Contracting State could not be absolved of its responsibility under the Convention on the ground that it was not bound by some type of inter-State treaties (ibid., § 90). 162. In particular, two bilateral agreements (with Belarus and Russia) had entered into force over the course of the domestic proceedings and prior to the present case being brought. Recalculations had been made for certain of the applicants; however, they had only been made ex nunc, as none of the agreements allowed for retrospective payments. Furthermore, employment periods and equivalent periods accrued in other territories of the former Soviet Union remained excluded from the calculation. According to the applicants, the partial inclusion of certain periods in the calculation of their retirement pensions could only have relevance for the calculation of the just satisfaction award under Article 41 of the Convention. 163. The applicants also dismissed the respondent Government’s claim that finding a violation would render the bilateral agreements on social security devoid of purpose. That would only be the case if the aim of those agreements had been to improve the situation of “permanently resident non-citizens” only; however, their scope was much broader. In practice, those agreements did improve the situation of some “permanently resident non-citizens”, to a certain extent; however, such improvements were merely collateral and could not be considered an effective means of eradicating the violation of the Convention caused by the domestic legislation. 164. While the judgment in the above-cited Andrejeva case had concerned only the employment periods accrued outside the territory of Latvia, the applicants argued that the same principles also applied with regard to equivalent periods. This was especially true in respect of compulsory military service, as conscripts had been unable to choose the location of the compulsory military service and were compelled to go where they were sent. There had been no local or ethnic units in the Soviet army at the relevant time. The applicants emphasised that the third applicant had been conscripted from the territory of Latvia where he had lived since the age of three. 55