Pro-Kremlin youth movements protest near Estonia's embassy in Moscow.
Photo: Grigory Tambulov
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Russian Authorities Ask Price of Sanctions
// Estonia might become second Georgia
Psychological war between the activists of pro-Kremlin youth movements and the Estonian embassy in Moscow gathers pace. Members of Nashi, Mestnye, Rossiya Molodaya, and the Eurasia Youth Union attacked the press conference of Estonian Ambassador Marina Kaljurand on Wednesday. Russian authorities prefer so far not to follow the pro-Kremlin youths in their behavior, assuring that no measures are being planned against Estonia or its citizens. Only Russian Railways company announced Wednesday that it stops dispatching oil-products to Estonia, saying it is due to the scheduled reconstruction works. However, Kommersant has information that sanctions against Tallinn might come soon.
Estonian Ambassador Marina Kaljurand planned to hold a press conference at 12 p.m. on Wednesday. At first, Estonia’s embassy intended to organize it in Interfax agency. Yet, the agency gave a polite refusal. Then the embassy turned to the editorial office of Argumenty i Fakty newspaper (AiF). However, several minutes before the event’s beginning, some 150 activists of Nashi, Mestnye, Rossiya Molodaya, and the Eurasia Youth Union (ESM) broke into AiF. They carried their movements’ flags in their hands, and wore the Russian flag on their shoulders. “Fascism will not pass!” shouted Nashi, trying to force their way into the room where Ambassador Kaljurand was. ESM activists climbed onto the roof and chanted “Long live the empire!”. AiF’s and Estonian embassy’s security services were trying to stop the young people, resorting to tear-gas. The guards of the building called the police.
After the press conference, when the ambassador’s car drove outside AiF’s gates, the activists rushed at it. They shut off Myasnitskaya street, blocked the car, tore down Estonian flag, and threw dandelions at it. The car managed to pass after the riot police had arrived. Nearly ten people were detained. The rest went back to Estonia’s embassy.
The whole district around the embassy, beginning from Arbatskaya subway station, was covered with Nashi’s leaflets with Kaljurand’s photo, reading: “The ambassador of a Fascist state is wanted for refusing to apologize on the state’s behalf for removal and destruction of the monument to Soldier-Liberator and for violating soldier graves.”
Malyi Kislovsky and Kalashny side-streets, where the embassy and the consulate of Estonia are located, respectively, were blocked on Wednesday by Nashi, Mestnye, and Molodaya Gvardia activists, just like in the previous five days. One could pass by the embassy, squeezing among young men with flags. On the contrary, Nashi set up their own cordon, second after that of police, in Kalashny side-street. Acting on the orders of their leader Vasily Yakemenko, activists “undertook the powers of law-enforcement bodies” and zealously secured order in the side-street that they had shut off. A group of Nashi youths blocked the way for Kommersant’s reporter, who tried to approach the consulate, and tried to search him upon learning that he wasn’t the rally’s participant. All that time, signatures were being collected near the consulate, in support of “removing the embassy of Fascist Estonia”.
For some reason, the pro-Kremlin youths became more active when the car of Swedish Ambassador Juhan Mulander appeared in Malyi Kislovsky side-street. The car lost the flag and a side mirror. The ambassador spent about 15 minutes blocked in the car.
Kommersant’s reporter managed to enter the premises of the besieged Estonian embassy on Wednesday. All officials, including the consulate’s employees, were in their offices, -- in spite of the Estonian Foreign Ministry’s decision to suspend work of the consulate in Moscow. Ambassador Marina Kaljurand, wanted by Nashi, was in her office as well.
The embassy’s employees told the reporter they have been keeping to the guarded territory in the last six days. Most of them live in the district between Malyi Kislovsky and Kalashny side-streets. Those who live in the city are given days off. The employees added that the music switched on by the protesters “does not disturb work, on the whole” because the embassy’s building has good acoustic insulation, but the noise can be heard well in their personal apartments. The embassy’s press secretary Franek Persidski said there came no complaints of any oppression from Estonian citizens recently.
The Federal Migration Service of Russia said that no one prepares any measures against Estonian citizens. However, Kommersant’s source in the FMS said it is primarily due to “the lack of anyone to punish: there are between 800 and 1,000 Estonians in Russia.” The Foreign Ministry of Russia is not considering any sanctions either, “so far”, they stressed. The Transport Ministry assured there will be no restrictions for air and railway communications with Estonia, due to any reasons, be it technical or political.
At the same time, Ivangorod on the border with Estonia hosted Nashi’s tent camp. They were trying to block the way for eighteen-wheelers from Estonia. The vans were stopped for half an hour. Several activists were detained by the police.
Russian Railways was the only company that adopted special measures against Estonia on Wednesday. Beginning from May 1, the Oktyabrskaya railway begins reconstruction works, due to which the company suspended the schedule of dispatching oil to Estonia. Russian Railways said these are scheduled works, unrelated to the political situation, and all partners of the company had been notified two weeks in advance.
Nonetheless, tougher sanctions against Estonia are likely to come soon. A source in the president’s staff said that many ministries, including that of transport and of foreign affairs, are very determined. Russian officials wait only for the report on the Duma delegation’s visit to Estonia (report scheduled for May 10). The source said Moscow’s reaction is “realistic, calm, and non-hysterical”. He added the Kremlin lays chief hopes on the society. First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov several weeks ago called on the society, meaning large business primarily, to boycott Estonia.
Meanwhile, head of the Federation Council’s Committee on International Affairs Mikhail Margelov said that any sanctions against Estonia will be “useless and harmful”, primarily “because that country is a EU member state, and the EU is Russia’s main economic counteragent.” Margelov added it is impossible to repeat the scenario of the anti-Georgia campaign: “We definitely went too far with Georgia, and ourselves suffered of the consequences.”
Mikhail Zygar, Ekaterina Savina, Yulia Taratuta, Renata Yambaeva
International Experience
How embassies were attacked
January 30, 1829. Russian diplomatic mission in Tehran was attacked. A crowd broke into the building and killed all the employees, including special envoy, poet Alexander Griboedov. The attack was triggered by the signing of the Turkmanchai peace treaty, according to which Russia obtained Nakhichevanskoe and Erivanskoe khanates.
August 4, 1914. After Germany declared war to Russia, the German embassy in St. Petersburg was battered. A crowd broke into the building, smashed windows, tore down wallpaper and pictures, threw furniture out of the windows. The embassy’s free-lance translator-correspondent was killed.
Since January 26, 1967, a crowd of Red Guards, members of the radical youth movement supporting the cultural revolution, was besieging the USSR’s embassy in Beijing. In February, the USSR had to resort to foreign diplomats’ help to evacuate the families of Soviet citizens from China. The crowd repeatedly tries to set the embassy on fire, and on August 17 it battered the consulate. The blockade was lifted only by early 1969, when Chinese authorities no longer needed the aggressive actions of Red Guards.
November 4, 1979. Members of Islamic “Movement for Strengthening the Unity” took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran, demanding to extradite Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had fled to the U.S. The embassy’s 52 employees were taken hostage. On July 27, 1980, the shah died, and the captors demanded $24 billion. The sum was gradually reduced to $8 billion. It was taken from Iran’s frozen accounts in Western banks. The hostages were set free on January 20, 1981.
February 4, 2006. Syria’s capital Damascus hosted mass protest rallies against the caricatures of Prophet Muhammed in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and other European newspapers. The protesters climber over the fence of Denmark’s embassy and set the building on fire. Embassies of Sweden and Chile were in the same building. After this, the crowd went to Norway’s embassy and set if ablaze too. Riot police resorted to special substances to scatter the protesters. On February 5, Denmark’s embassy in Lebanon’s capital Beirut was set on fire as well. The employees did not suffer because they had been evacuated in advance.
All the Article in Russian as of May 03, 2007
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