Captain's Quarters -

Captain,
There are two parts to the Russian behavior.

The first is that the Soviet Union and its Russian successors have made a cult of its victory in the "Great Patriotic War". Every town and city has its moments to WW2 soldiers and its Victory Street. For the Russian government, moving a Soviet war memorial is a lot like a BDS sufferer admitting that yes, Dubya was right about Iraq.

Second- the Russian government has decided to take the blunt force approach to diplomacy. Whether through experience or inclination, the Russian state's approach to diplomacy is to threaten rather than negotiate. If they can browbeat a NATO member- so much the better.

It could be that he's pushing to see if the US/EU rift is deep enough to let him get away with a land-grab. He already knows that the liberals here will be yelling "No blood for, um, er, whatever they produce over there!" (If I gave them credit for actually being informed, I'd have typed "No blood for machinery and paper products!") Were I to don a tin foil chapeau, I'd wonder if Estonia isn't being held hostage by Putin to keep us from doing anything against Iran.

Don't forget that hundreds of thousands of Russiana were "relocated" to Estonia after WWII to help make the population more Russian and hopefully (ridiculously) merge Estonia into the Russian family of puppet states.

So 60 years later, Russian-Estonians are understandably upset they were moving a statue that saluted the Red Army's defeat of Nazi troops in Estonia in 1944. (It's an odd thing to consider that Russians also saw the defeat of the Nazis as an important thing to be proud of even though the end result of the victory was the USSR.)

Estonian Estonians hated the statue because it symobilzed Estonia getting sucked into the Soviet Union.

It was a statue nobody much thought to until someone tried to move it, and it was like reopening an old wound. Next.

It's a Russian sort of madness that grows out of that odd combination of cynicism, pride, nostalgia, xenophobia and paranoia.

When you reflect on it, WW2 was the last great thing the Russians have to be proud of - they won the war, and to their mind, GB and the USA only scored an assist.

Anything that tampers with that pride really strikes at the heart of what they have left to hold onto.

How we would feel, if French suddenly decided to move US military cemeteries from their present locations in Normandy to some newer places? I think this is what happens in Russia. They really don't think of themselves as occupiers, probably more like common victims of Communisms.

Cybrludite: Good point. Or could something else be cooking below the radar, such as energy or pipeline arrangements that would adversely affect Russia's goals?

Olddeadmeat: I've come to believe that from the scale and savagery of fighting, and the national resources committed, the Eastern Front was the main event. The aid we provided and the second front in the west were major factors in defeating Germany, but just looking at Stalingrad and Kursk - geez!

Dave Rywall beat me to my post - the statue is a symbol of the ethnic divide between Estonians (Finns) and Russians. Never undersestimate Russians' xenophobic policy pretensions. Russia was the protector of Serbs in WW1 as well as during the Yugoslavia breakup and civil war. Russia/USSR also used its "protector" line to justify occupying slavic countries after WW2. Now they will claim that they are protecting Russians from Estonian aggression.

chsw

No one is going to stop Russia from invading Estonia.

Based on the events of the last year or two, Putin appears to be strongarming his way towards exerting Russian hegemony over their neighbors and trading partners. The UK Guardian is reporting (http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2081438,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront) that Estonian governmental and political bodies are under internet attack from Russia, and although it can't be pinned on the Russian military or government, it does appear to be coordinated. The pattern, as it appears to me, is that defiance of Russian will is being met with rhetorical and material reprisals. Russia is creating a reputation as an aggressor which is easily provoked and prone to escalate a disputed matter into a costly crisis. These are effectively the state equivalent of temper tantrums, with red-faced crying and yelling, and the occasional thrown object.
Militarily and economically weak former satellite states of the Soviet Union like Estonia are put in a bind because they don't have the means to retaliate in-kind or use brinksmanship to create favorable outcome. The EU (aka "the Eurowussies") are passive and determined to resolve disputes with diplomatic solution, but their positions lack the serious possibility that a failure to reach a diplomatic resolution might have economic or military consequences; Putin is therefore safe in assuming that his provocations have little chance of resulting in a materially negative outcome for Russia.
The former satellites states of the Soviet Union have been (wisely) partnering with the United States to offset their own financial and military weaknesses, and the harder Putin tries to forcefully (rhetorically or otherwise) exert influence, the more these states back away from Russia and edge towards the U.S. We've seen that play out with the current manufactured controversy over the anti-missile shield now in development. In short, Putin is a thug, but it's not working out well for him - or Russia. Long may that continue to be the case.

dave rywall, it's worse than that.

"The statue was modeled after Kristjan Palisalu, an Estonian wrestler who won two gold medals in the Berlin Olympics. When USSR occupied Estonia in 1940, he was deported to Soviet Union. When USSR became really involved in the war, he was drafted to the Red Army and sent to the Finnish Front, where he defected to the Finnish side. Finns then allowed him trip back to his homeland (which was under German occupation at the time). In 1944 he was captured by the Russians and sent to Siberia. It was during his time as a prisoner that he was used as a model for the statue.

So the "heroic Red Army soldier" depicted in the statue is no such thing. He was Estonian who refused to serve in the Red Army and was sent to Siberia because of that. The statue is a big lie. Everything about it is a lie." - quoted from Janne, of Ars Technica Forum

What is under the statue?