BONJOUR L'ESTONIE

Will Narva be Russia’s next Crimea?

Estonia would be the perfect battlefield for Russia and Putin to continue the war they began with Georgia in 2008.

Lying between Lake Peipus and the Baltic Sea, the city of Narva appears very different than the tourist-heavy Crimea. But what it lacks in climate, it makes up for in a unique mix of history and demographics that may well make it Putin’s next target.

Now located within Estonia, Narva has historical significance to Russia. It was here that Peter the Great was defeated by the better trained and equipped Swedish forces of King Charles XII in the opening phases of the Great Northern War. Peter, however, learned from his mistake. He changed tactics, avoided open battle, and slowly wore down the Swedes over the next two decades, eventually winning the war and with it, Narva.

The legacy of Peter’s victory lives on in Narva today. More than 80 percent of Narvans are ethnic Russians, while only 46 percent hold Estonian citizenship, compared to the 36 percent who hold Russian passports. A further 16 percent, mostly ethnic Russians, hold “undefined” status, lacking citizenship within Russia, but denied Estonian citizenship through vigorous linguistic requirements. Estonian is considered one of the most complicated languages in the world to learn, and fluency is required not just for citizenship, but also to work as a teacher or bureaucrat, requirements enforced by the Language Inspectorate. No wonder Russia announced last month that it found the “mistreatment” of Russians within Estonia unacceptable.

Estonia froze assets of mayor of separatist Sevastopol

Estonia has in connection with the events in the Crimea implemented international financial sanctions against two companies belonging to Aleksey Chalyi, who became the mayor of Sevastopol, LETA/Public Broadcasting reports.

Estonian Police Board spokesman Kaarel Kuusk said that the corporate persons against which the sanctions have been implemented according to European Council decree 269/2014 are AS Tavrida Electric Export (registered in Estonia) and Tavrida Electric Holding AG (registered in Switzerland) and they are both under Chalyi's control.

"Implementing the financial sanctions means that the financial means and economic resources of the persons and persons under their control are frozen," said Kuusk.

Tavrida Electric Export is founded in 2003 and sells industrial electronics in Tallinn.

Chalyi told Wall Street Journal that according to the European Council decision, his assets were among those to be frozen, but only Estonia has made real steps in this.

Estonia's sportswoman loses grant after she decides to represent Russia

Estonian Union of Ice-skating (EUI) has deprived Natalia Zabiyako of grant as she decided to represent Russia’s national team, R-Sport reports. Zabiyako changed her partner, Russian sportsman Alexander Zaboev, with whom she had represented Estonia on the team tournament. Her current partner is Yuri Larionov.

The amount of the grant equals to 840 euros per half a year. Gunar Kuura, Secretary General of EUI, asked Estonian Ministry of Culture to deprive Zabiyako of the grant. Thus, the grant goes to Helery Hyalvin, the champion of Estonia in single skating tournament for women.

Zabiyako said that she had expected such decision, adding that this sum can hardly help both ends meet.

She also said that she was proposed to represent Russia after the World Championships 2014 in Saitama, Japan. Zabiyako and her partner Zaboev ranked 19 on these Championships.

Soft power allows avenue for Russian agitation

Foreign ministers from the Nordic, Baltic and Visegrad countries meet in Narva, Estonia, on March 7 to discuss the crisis in Ukraine, reports news intelligence agency Stratfor.

Despite their strong Western integration, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are vulnerable to Russian destabilization tactics via energy, trade, political and cultural links. It is highly unlikely that Russia would intervene militarily in Estonia, a NATO member, to protect ethnic Russians. More concerning than a military conflict with Russia is the prospect of trade blockades, a step that could quickly damage the Baltics economically, with little Western allies could do to help. But Moscow's most likely move is to use the ethnic Russian minority living in the Baltic States - a minority that constitutes more than a quarter of the population in Estonia and Latvia and around 6 percent in Lithuania - to attempt to destabilize the three countries.

In light of Russian actions in Ukraine allegedly designed to protect ethnic Russians there and Moscow's support of ethnic Russian groups in Latvia and Estonia, the Baltic States want to see the West reinforces its commitments to protect them from Russian aggression. The West has made several gestures to signal its commitment to its Baltic NATO allies over the past weeks, such as the visits of foreign ministers and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden to the countries and through dispatching additional U.S.jets to reinforce NATO's Baltic air patrol mission. But these moves do not help the Baltic States- particularly Estonia and Latvia with their sizeable Russian minorities - deal with Russia's non-military pressure.

Non-military pressure on the Baltics

Russians of Narva not seeking "Liberation" from Moscow

NARVA - Aleksandr Brokk calls himself an "Estonian patriot." His family has lived in the country for generations and he makes his living running a successful tech park.

Like the vast majority in the sleepy eastern Estonian border city of Narva, Brokk is an ethnic Russian. And while he's proud of his language and heritage, all he needs to do is look across the river at the dilapidated Russian fortress city of Ivangorod to know which side of the border he wants to live on.

"People come and go. When you cross into Ivangorod, straight away you can see the atmosphere there," Brokk says. "Who is going to want to join that?" Brokk's opinions are not an anomaly here. In Narva, Russian is the lingua franca, Russian media is the main source of news, and orange-and-black St. George ribbons symbolizing military victory adorn cars.

But the Russians of Narva, who make up 88 percent of the city's population, call the European Union and NATO their home. And while they may feel the emotional tug of Moscow and certainly have their grievances with the Estonian government in Tallinn, few say they want to follow the example of Crimea and join Russia.

Better availability of information will help foreigners to adapt quicker

In order to facilitate the adaptation of foreigners staying in Estonia it is necessary to ensure better availability of information and existence of an effective adaptation program, finds the study on foreigner adaption to Estonian society.

This week Estonian Ministry of the Interior presented a new study “Adaptation of new immigrants in Estonia: choices and political proposals to form a comprehensive and sustainable system”. In this study the interviewed foreigners and the organizations recruiting them were drawing attention to the difficulties in obtaining important practical information and information regarding functioning of the state as well as to the currently modest role of the state in facilitating adaptation.

According to Ruth Annus, Head of Migration and Border Policy Department at the Ministry of the Interior, the study has confirmed the necessity of several measures already being worked on and showed that the state is moving in the right direction with regard to facilitating the adaptation of foreigners.

“This year we will develop a new adaptation program for new immigrants, which will allow foreigners who settle in Estonia to receive information on local employment, entrepreneurship and study opportunities as well as to get some basic Estonian language training. We also plan a special information gateway aimed at foreigners”, says Annus. “We are acting in order to create a comprehensive and efficient system that would support immigration, to make the adaptation of new immigrants as comfortable as possible and to attract highly educated workers in Estonia”.

Estonia casts a wary eye toward Russia, while leaning on NATO

The three countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, were all part of the Soviet Union, like Ukraine, but are all also now members of NATO, unlike Ukraine. While that should provide a measure of protection, leaders there are still nervous.

In a recent interview, Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said he hoped the situation in Crimea and Ukraine would stabilize and that direct talks between Russia and Ukraine would begin soon. Paet says he's deeply concerned by Russia’s stated belief that they “have some sort of right to protect Russian minorities everywhere in the world.”

Everybody is aware, Paet says, that the Russian immigrant population is increasing in many European societies. That would seem to imply more Russian intervention in more places.

“Russia’s posture has no place in the 21st Century,” Paet says. Estonia has good reason to be concerned about Russia’s actions in Crimea. In the early years of World War II, Russia invaded and occupied Estonia. Tens of thousands of Estonians, including almost all the nation's political leaders, were executed or deported to labor camps, where most of them died. In 1949, under Joseph Stalin, more than 20,000 Estonians were deported, accused of being disloyal to the Soviet Union.

Head of Enterprise Estonia sacked after two weeks on the job

The supervisory board of the Enterprise Estonia foundation decided yesterday to recall the newly-appointed management board member Andres Rannamäe who was hired only two weeks ago.

Shortly after Rannamäe was elected member of the foundation's management board, the prosecutor's office received information that Rannamae could be connected with the embezzlement of thousands of euros of research funds.

Rannamäe was the head of research company Nordbiochem between 2008 and 2013. That company received two million euros from Enterprise Estonia during that period. Nordbiochem cooperated with Russian company Invivo, which claims the Estonian company owes them 570,000 euros, money that was instead transferred to a company in Luxembourg in 2010, Eesti Ekspress reported last week.

Rannamäe said Invivo asked for the funds to be diverted to Luxembourg, but the Russian company said the request was a forgery.

According the authorities, Rannamäe might have faced a certain conflict of interest as head of Enterprise Estonia because the agency has a right of recourse against the research company Nordbiochem he headed in 2008-2013.

Echoes of the Sudetenland

“WE FEEL uneasy, but we must not get in a hysterical mood,” says Edgars Rinkevics, Latvia’s foreign minister. As the Ukrainian crisis continues, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, the three Baltic states, are increasingly exposed to Russian pressure, for historical, geographic and linguistic reasons. If it weren’t for their NATO membership, the Baltic trio would feel almost as vulnerable as in 1938-39, after Hitler had annexed the Sudetenland under the pretext of needing to protect the local German population and during the run-up to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Speaking of parallels between then and now, Mr Rinkevics notes that: “For us, there are a lot of emotions.”

Few countries know Russia as well as the Baltic states do. They were part of the Russian empire for centuries and were subjugated by the Soviet Union for 50 years. Around a quarter of Estonia’s people and 27% of Latvia’s are native Russian-speakers (see map), though nearly all Balts speak some Russian and many are bilingual. In Latvia one in five marriages is mixed.

Even so, Baltic leaders’ warnings about Russian expansionism have tended to go unheeded by their allies in NATO and the European Union. They were often dismissed as paranoid or Russophobe. “We said so many times: Russia is not a new Russia,” says Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the foreign-affairs committee of the Estonian parliament and a former Moscow correspondent for an Estonian daily. Russia continues with its expansionist tradition, according to Mr Mihkelson; the war with Georgia in 2008 was just a first step.

Although the West’s attitude has changed with Russia’s annexation of Crimea, most west Europeans still disagree with the Balts (and Poles) about what to do. The European Union has penalised some Russians with travel bans and asset freezes.

7 parts of Russia that other countries could call theirs

If Crimea ‘historically’ belongs to Russia, these other regions ‘historically’ don’t.

The rise and fall of empires, two World Wars and the collapse of the Soviet Union mean the map of Europe has been redrawn more times than Russian President Vladimir Putin has posed shirtless. And anyone who claims they owned anywhere first would, if they were being entirely honest, probably have to admit that someone else got there before them.

That was Putin’s logic for the Russian annexation of Crimea. It used to be ours. Therefore it always was, therefore it still is.

Well, by the same token, several other countries could take bites out of Russia. The world’s largest country didn’t start off that way. Just like every other empire, it invaded, conquered, negotiated and seized the lands it now calls its own.

Some of those lands are fiercely disputed to this day, some are the subjects of uneasy settlements, and some have long ago been relinquished to Russia’s unchallenged control. But here’s a list of the most important Russian territories that other countries could, if they chose, try to claim back.

1. The Kuril Islands: Claimed by Japan

Savisaar survives no-confidence vote in Tallinn City Council

No-confidence vote called by opposition parties in the Tallinn City Council against Mayor Edgar Savisaar held yesterday for Savisaar’s taxpayer-funded trip to the Sochi Games in February and for his recent remarks made in a speech in Moscow failed.

Councillors of Centre Party that has a dominant majority in the Tallinn City Council did not show up for the vote.

Martin Kukk, head of Reform Party's faction in Tallinn Council, said that the opposition finds it hard to trust a mayor who has used Tallinn taxpayer money to hold private meetings in the Russian Federation and exchanged his Estonian national team jacket for one of the Russian Railways one in Sochi.

Kukk said the party asked Savisaar to return the 2,384 euros, and the Russian Railways jacket he was pictured wearing while in Sochi. He said Savisaar was in Russia on the invitation of the head of the nation's railway company, Vladimir Yakunin.

Opposition Reform Party, IRL and Social Democrats have already filed another application to hold a new no-confidence vote against Savisaar for corruption and the way the City of Tallinn is run.

Toomas Hõbemägi

NATO must station soldiers in the Baltics

Meanwhile, ex-generals call for Germany to beef up its army.

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen called for nato to send soldiers to the Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—to reassure them in the face of growing Russian aggression.

“Now it has become important for alliance members on the periphery that nato shows its presence,” von der Leyen said in an interview with Der Spiegel, published March 22. “The current situation clearly shows that nato isn’t just a military alliance, but is also a political one.”

Von der Leyen’s comments are exactly what the Baltic countries want to hear. Estonia, for example, has a substantial Russian population, deliberately moved there by Stalin to make independence from Russia more difficult. If Russia chooses to invade, Crimea-style, the only thing Estonia has to protect it is security guarantees from nato. Stationing troops in Estonia would give the country a much clearer assurance that the alliance will be there for it if push comes to shove.

This is exactly what von der Leyen had in mind. When interviewed by German tv Channel ard the next day, she said, “It’s important to make clear that nato isn’t just something on paper, but that we are there for each other.”

President Ilves appoints the new government of Estonia

Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves appointed on Wednesday the new Estonian government, LETA/Public Broadcasting reports.

The government was formed by prime minister, Reform Party member Taavi Rõivas.

The Reform Party and Social Democratic Party government includes also Reform Party members, Keit Pentus-Rosimannus as the environment minister, Urve Tiidus as the culture minister, Jürgen Ligi as the finance minister, Urmas Paet as the foreign minister, Hanno Pevkur as the interior minister, Urmas Kruuse as the health and labour minister and Anne Sulling as the foreign trade and entrepreneurship minister.

The Social Democrats to work in the government are party chairman Sven Mikser as defence minister, Jevgeni Ossinovski as education and science minister, Andres Anvelt as the justice minister, Urve Palo as the economy and infrastructure minister, Ivari Padar as the agriculture minister and Helmen Kütt as the social welfare minister.

The new government can work till the next Riigikogu elections that take place on March 1 next year.

The new government will give an oath of office to the Riigikogu Wednesday afternoon, after which the president will relieve the previous Andrus Ansip-led Reform Party and Pro Patria and Res Publica Union (Isamaa ja Res Publica Liit – IRL) government of its duties.

The tiny Estonian town that could spell the end of NATO

The Russian invasion and rapid absorption of the Crimean peninsula might seem like the spark ready to ignite a new Cold War. In fact, given the feeble Western response so far, the more likely outcome is not the division of Europe once more between NATO’s Western alliance and a neo-Soviet Russia, but rather the fracturing and ultimate demise of NATO and the Western alliance itself.

Of course, no one expects the West to use military force to protect Ukrainian territory, despite the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which Russia, the US and the UK guaranteed Ukrainian sovereignty in exchange for its relinquishing the nuclear weapons that remained on its territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet even the Russians now seem surprised, indeed somewhat amused, by how disunited and craven the Western response has been. Far from being isolated, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin’s very decisiveness has made him the most respected statesman in the world. So what comes next?

Having demonstrated to the Ukrainians with his Crimean excursion the emptiness of Western guarantees in the Budapest memorandum, Putin can now credibly demand that Ukraine either accept its status as a Russian vassal or cede more territory – starting with the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, which has a slight Russian majority (he can also exert pressure from Moldova’s breakaway region, Transnistria, on Ukraine’s western flank, which has operated as a Russian colony for the past 20 years).

Europe wants Estonia to accept more refugees

New figures show that Estonia has the least refugees among all EU member states. According to a new international report, Estonia also has the lowest number of asylum applicants and approvals, reports Eesti Päevaleht.

The report criticizes Estonia for its asylum policy and says that while Estonia is pledging to fight for human rights and democracy, it refuses to accept people who are forced to flee their home countries. The report also said that living conditions of asylum applicants in Estonia were not up to standard.

Also UN is now putting pressure on Estonia to join the UN refugee relocation programmes and accept more refugees. “We are not expecting Estonia to accept hundreds of refugees, but Estonia could in the near future offer protection to refugees the same way as Estonians were rescued when they had to leave their home country in the past,” said the UNHCR representative.

Commenting the issue, Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said that Estonia was not yet ready to join the global refugee relocation programme and it would not be reasonable. “We are handling applicants who arrive in Estonia as the first country in Europe and apply for refugee status,” said Paet, adding that it would not be reasonable for Estonia to participate in the refugee relocation within Europe at present.

Palo costs Estonian Air 65,000 euros

Urve Palo statements describing the likelihood of bankruptcy of the national carrier Estonian Air cost the carrier around 65,000 euros, reports Eesti Päevaleht.

The company sold around 500 tickets less than planned after Palo's words. If earlier data on ticket fees is taken into consideration, that Estonian Air earns an average of 130 euros per one passenger, it can been estimated that one sentence of Palo cost several dozens of thousands of euros.

Social Democratic MP Urve Palo said on Thursday that during the seven-year term of office of outgoing economy and communications minister Juhan Parts, Estonian Air has in essence been led to the verge of bankruptcy and there is high likelihood that the European Commission won't allow granting state aid to the company either. "Thus we can assume that it will go bankrupt. I don't want to cause panic but as a minister I have to be ready that the state aid permit won't arrive from the European Commission," Palo told Delfi Ärileht.

After that, confused clients of the carrier jammed up the phone lines of the company, demanded money back for tickets they already bought and cancelled bookings, reports LETA.

Urve Palo apologized on Friday that her words about the likelihood of bankruptcy of Estonian Air made clients concerned and assured that when she starts working as the minister, she supports preserving the aviation company.

Crimea is second Russian land grab this year

The Russian seizure of the Crimea is its second land grab this year. A small section of NATO member Estonia was taken in a little publicized redrawing the border between the two countries. And the second such grab under Russian Putin. Remember South Ossetia being detached from Georgia, and there was armed resistance there.

The Estonian action may have played a role in NATO commander Gen. Philip Breedlove saying troops needed to be dispatched to the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuanian and Estonia, all former Soviet Republics. The annexation of Crimea has been described as the “smoothest invasion of modern times. It was over before the world the outside world realized it had started,” wrote John Simpson, BBC World Editor who saw it happening first hand.

Reuters reported an agreement was signed Feb. 18. But no details were released and the Estonia affair has gotten virtually no international publicity. In the past Moscow could send tanks rolling into Hungary, Czechoslovia and other areas. Now they must be more discreet, except in far off and little known areas like Chechnya and Georgia.

When Western diplomats, joined by Chinese leaders, meet in the Hague on Monday they no doubt will hear calls for more help from the Baltic Republics, which have already increased military spending but will never be a match for Russia. The Estonia Public Broadcasting news site news.err.ee reports “alarmist headlines say Estonia may be the next target for Russian aggression and land grabs.

Ethnic Russians in the Baltics are not persecuted

Along with the incredible amount of propaganda and demagogy with which Russia justifies aggression against Ukraine and the occupation of Crimea, all the more frequently you will hear of attacks on other countries as well, which have large Russian communities due to historic reasons. It is possible to influence the public opinion by distorting reality and Putin’s ideologists are professionals in this field. But the question is why does this need to be done? Is it just a propaganda technique to divert attention from the attack on Ukraine or is Russia preparing in earnest for larger scale aggression, including against NATO countries, which inevitably means attacking NATO as a whole.

US journalist of Russian ancestry Julia Ioffe recently wrote the article, “Ethnic Russians in the Baltics Are Actually Persecuted. So Why Isn’t Putin Stepping In?” Even for a reader who is not familiar with the situation in Estonia, the mere title is indicative of a call for Russia to act in the same manner as in Crimea belonging to Ukraine. I do not think this is what Julia Ioffe wants, and it seems that she does not have an objective understanding of the reality of Estonia either, since she is basing it solely on Moscow’s propaganda and the non-independent information source, Russia Today.

Court rules on sovereign immunity

Introduction

In 2013 the Ontario Superior Court of Justice decided a dispute between Bombardier Inc and Estonian Air (for further details see "Ontario Superior Court rules on Bombardier v AS Estonian Air"). When the dispute first arose in mid-2011, the republic of Estonia owned 97% of the shares of Estonian Air. Bombardier had sued Estonian Air, claiming that the cancellation of a contract for the purchase of five new CRJ900 aircraft was the result of the republic's tortious interference. Before the Ontario Superior Court, the republic succeeded in having the action permanently stayed on the basis that it was immune from the jurisdiction of any court in Canada. Bombardier appealed that decision to the Ontario Court of Appeal, which rendered its decision on January 17 2014, dismissing .....

Facts

The shareholders' agreement between Estonian Air and the republic included a statement that the agreement "constitutes a private act, subjecting the [Republic] to private civil law in Estonia as well as abroad", and that the republic "expressly acknowledges that… it waives all defences based on sovereign immunity or other form of immunity".

France could put four jets on Baltics security duty

France could send four planes to Lithuania on protection duty if NATO decides to boost air defenses over the Baltic states, a source close to French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday, amid tension over Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine.

Le Drian began a rapid visit to Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania and Estonia on Friday, with the aim of offering them reassurances on security, as European Union leaders sought to broaden sanctions against Moscow officials.

The French offer would come on top of a NATO mission that has offered air policing for the past decade and follows a U.S. offer to provide extra aircraft.

Since 2004, NATO has operated the "police the skies" mission over the Baltic states, with each NATO member country taking a turn every four months to supply planes that are based in Lithuania. The United States does the job at the moment and Poland will take over in May.

"France is ready to contribute four planes if NATO decides to beef things up," said the source, who was speaking on condition of anonymity.

Marine Pennetier

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France suspends 'most' military cooperation with Russia