Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu reacted to Russia's decision to lower the level of diplomatic relations with the Baltic republic.

He announced that he would call on the EU member states to follow the principle of parity in diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation, according to which the number of diplomats in both states should be the same.

The Estonian minister explained that he was taking part in a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the EU member states, whom he planned to inform about the Russian step.

“And I will certainly call on other countries to follow the principle of parity introduced by Estonia,” he said in an interview with ERR.

According to Reinsalu, Russian Ambassador Vladimir Lipaev will have to leave Estonian territory on February 7, simultaneously with the departure of the Republic's Ambassador Margus Laidre from the Russian Federation.

“Estonia will not deviate from the principle of parity, which we informed the Russian Federation about,” said Reinsalu.

After that, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, Edgar Rinkevich, wrote on his Twitter that the republic would lower the level of diplomatic relations with Russia from February 24.

According to him, Riga took such a step, including as a sign of solidarity with Estonia.

On January 23, Moscow decided to downgrade the diplomatic representative in Estonia to charge d'affaires.

This was a response by the Russian side to the fact that the Estonian leadership "in recent years has purposefully destroyed the entire range of relations" with Russia, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

“Total Russophobia, the cultivation of hostility towards our country have been elevated by Tallinn to the rank of state policy,” the ministry said in a statement.

As specified in the Russian ministry, Estonia has taken a "new unfriendly step" to radically reduce the size of the Russian embassy in Tallinn, "confirming the line towards the collapse of relations" between the Russian Federation and the Baltic republic.

“On January 23, Estonian Ambassador Margus Laidre was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

He was strongly protested in connection with the actions of the Estonian authorities... All responsibility for the development of such a situation in relations between Russia and Estonia lies entirely with the Estonian side.

We will continue to respond to the hostile steps of the Estonian leadership,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

This decision was commented by the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova in her Telegram.

According to her, "the Estonian regime got what it deserved."

Recall that on January 11, the Estonian Foreign Ministry demanded to reduce the number of Russian diplomats in the republic to eight by the beginning of February.

After that, the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation warned Tallinn that the hostile actions of the Estonian side against Russian diplomats would not go unanswered.

This was stated by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova.

She also called Estonia "one of the most hostile to Russia states."

“At the same time, I want, apparently, once again to please my overseas curators,” Zakharova added.

  • Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova

  • © Press Service of the Russian Foreign Ministry

Russophobic steps of Tallinn

Recall that the Estonian side regularly comes up with anti-Russian initiatives.

In the past month alone, Tallinn has proposed a range of measures against Russia or its historical legacy.

So, in early January of this year, the Estonian government allocated more than €900,000 for the dismantling and transfer of Soviet monuments "from public space."

This was announced by the press secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic Yevgenia Vyaria in an interview with ERR, emphasizing that these monuments "threaten security."

The country’s decision to remove Soviet monuments “from the public space of Estonia” was mentioned on the website of the government of the republic back in August 2022.

As noted in the structure, a working group created at the State Chancellery collects information about the monuments located throughout Estonia, and also develops a plan for their transfer and "replacement of Soviet tombstones with neutral ones."

We are talking about 200-400 such monuments.

At the same time, Tallinn calls on the citizens of the country to report about the monuments of the “occupation period”.

In September, Tallinn announced

that the Estonian authorities are “beginning to remove” Soviet monuments.

It was about eight objects.

In October, the authorities announced that they were removing memorial plaques showing Red Army units and Soviet symbols in the area of ​​the Maarjamäe memorial.

As noted, the work was organized by the Land Department.

Later, in January, Estonia also took the initiative to confiscate Russian assets.

However, as Russian Ambassador to Tallinn Vladimir Lipaev explained, this idea has no legal prospects.

“In Estonia itself, there are few of our assets, frankly, according to their estimates - 20 million (the currency is not specified.

- RT

), there is an estimate that it is somewhat more, but this is not fundamental, there are no state assets here,” RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.

“Therefore, from a legal point of view, this is an absolutely hopeless initiative.”

In addition, Tallinn continues to provide military assistance to the Kyiv regime.

As Prime Minister Kaja Kallas announced last week, the Estonian authorities have decided to send a new arms tranche to Ukraine, which, according to her, will include howitzers, grenade launchers and ammunition.

Kallas stressed that this will be the largest package of military assistance to Kyiv from Tallinn, and its total volume corresponds to more than 1% of Estonia's GDP.

"Outpost of anti-Russian policy"

According to experts, the Estonian authorities have not only been implementing extreme forms of anti-Russian actions for a long time, but are now trying to influence other countries, "acting as a provocateur."

“Estonia is running ahead of all the other EU countries in its rabid Russophobia, wanting to curry favor with the Brussels leadership and Washington,” said Vladimir Shapovalov, deputy director of the Institute of History and Politics of Moscow State Pedagogical University, in an interview with RT.

However, by pursuing a pronounced anti-Russian policy and trying to destroy relations with the Russian Federation to the maximum extent, the Estonian authorities harm their state first of all, the expert stated.

“Estonia is very dependent on the Russian economy.

No matter how much Tallinn strives for a complete rupture of relations with Moscow, this is impossible due to geographical ties, the peculiarities of the development of the Estonian economy.

Therefore, the more Estonia enters into conflict with Russia, the more it will lose from this.

As for the Russian Federation, it will practically not suffer any losses, since it is not a problem for it to redirect certain flows of goods, choose other markets, ”the analyst believes.

  • Tallinn

  • Gettyimages.ru

Shapovalov also recalled that, in addition to Tallinn's desire to spite Russia to eliminate the Soviet legacy, seize Russian assets and pump weapons into Ukraine, the Estonian authorities had previously come up with many other Russophobic initiatives.

“This is an anti-Russian sanctions policy, the persecution of the Russian language, the Russian-speaking population, journalists, public figures, the ban on television and radio broadcasting of Russian channels.

And that's not all that is in the arsenal of Estonia today.

Unfortunately, it is Russophobia that is the main political commodity that Tallinn can currently trade with the leaders of other, larger Western states.

Estonia has become an outpost of the anti-Russian policy of the West,” the expert said.

At the same time, Shapovalov doubts that the majority of EU countries will follow the call of the head of the Estonian Foreign Ministry to reduce the level of diplomatic relations with Russia.

"Large and leading states of the European Union, most likely, will try to refrain from such actions," he said.

Nikolai Mezhevich, chief researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, holds a similar position.

According to him, Tallinn's call to other EU states to lower the level of diplomatic relations with Moscow should be regarded as an attempt to start the process of destroying Russia's ties with the association as a whole.

“But will the main backbone of the EU countries go for it?

Let me doubt this: I'm not sure that all European countries will want to play the Estonian game, but someone other than Latvia can support it.

I think that some sympathy for the Estonian position can be expressed by a number of European states, but there will be no massive rupture or downgrading of diplomatic ties, ”the analyst said in a comment to RT.

In turn, the deputy director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, a member of the Civic Chamber of Russia, Nikita Danyuk, said in an interview with RT that Estonia "most of all in the EU has stained its activities with Russophobic antics" and now wants to attract new countries to its side.

“In this context, the attempt of Latvia to go ahead of the curve and announce a decrease in the level of diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation is not surprising.

So far, this looks like a demarche of the two Baltic republics, which are trying with all their might to demonstrate their significance, although, of course, there has long been no particular reason for Russia in diplomatic relations with the Baltic states, ”the expert concluded.