Soldiering on

There is a lot of comment around the blogosphere about the recent events in Tallinn. See here and here for Siberian Light's take; Global Voices also has coverage. Here's my small and unoriginal contribution, from today's bne newsletter.

Russia-Estonia stand off
Rencap, Russia
Tim Brenton
Thursday, May 3, 2007

The week-long stand off between Russia and Estonia reached a new level yesterday (2 May) when demonstrators from the Nashi youth group stormed a newspaper office in Moscow in order to disrupt a press conference being held by the Estonian Ambassador to Russia, Marina Kaljurand. The ambassador called the press conference to criticise Russian authorities for failing to protect her rights as a diplomat as laid out in the Vienna treaty against what she claimed were intimidation tactics used by the youth group.

Members of Nashi, the youth arm of United Russia, have been camped outside the Estonian Embassy for the past six days since the Estonian government removed a war memorial to Soviet soldiers from the centre of Tallinn and moved it to a cemetery outside the city. Estonia claims the memorial was becoming a focal point for clashes between Estonian nationalist groups and ethnic Russians living in the country. While Russia claims the move is yet another symptom of anti-Russian feeling in Estonia and disrespect for the dead. The Russian Orthodox Patriarch yesterday called the move "a sin"; and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has sent an extremely strongly worded letter to a number of his foreign counterparts complaining about the move.

The Nashi youth group is widely seen as being a tool of a faction within the Kremlin. Recently there have been cyber attacks on a number of Estonian government Web sites, which the Estonians claim originated from within the Kremlin.

However strange this saga may appear, it could be symptomatic of a number of things. Firstly, that Russia now feels in a powerful enough position to take on the Baltic States which have long been the most independent and anti-Russian former members of the Soviet Union. Secondly, yesterday's clash demonstrates a nervous political situation in Russia, where relatively minor events result in overly strong, possibly politically motivated reactions, in our view.