[la aurora]

Originally Posted by haku

That's how Russians see it, but that's not how Europeans see it. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 in which they agreed to divide up the countries situated between them (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland), and Estonia fell in the Soviet half of the cake. The Soviet Union occupied Estonia as soon as 1940, and the following years the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany fought over that piece of land, it was simply two totalitarian states fighting for supremacy over a land that did not belong to them in the first place, and the well being of Estonian people were the least of their concerns.
From an Estonian point of view, both occupations were equally illegal, unwanted, and ruthless. It's understandable that they consider this monument as a symbol of Soviet occupation.

It's to be noted that the annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania by the Soviet Union was never recognized by Western countries, from 1940 to 1991, they were officially considered sovereign countries under Soviet occupation.

You'll be surprised probably but they do teach us this side of WW2 as well at history lessons I like believing I'm not some kind of brain-washed fanatic when it comes to this. Soviet government was really far from saints for sure and they commited many crimes against a lot of people including their own. USSR would most likely attack Hitler if the guy wasn't faster with this.

But you see, people that did sign those agreements weren't even present there on the battle field. Those were ordinary people dying there, ones that thought they were fighting for something different from 'getting control over Estonia'. They were fighting against fascist occupants, against brutal force that attacked their homeland, killed their children and destroyed their cities, they were clearing their way to Berlin to fully defeat 'the evil'. It's those people that were burried there and the monument was for the soviet soldier, not soviet regime.

Of course it would be great if this war never began. But things we wish and things that really happen aren't always the same. Estonia is a small country and they had no power to protect themselves. There was not so many options. If soviet army never got there, it would be Hitler to feel there at home. Would they rather prefer that? When it comes to Western Europe it surprises me a bit how easy politicians & media turned USSR into one big evil. Yes of course the regime was bad. But we were allies in that war and without soviet army the result of this war could be really different. Most of west-european countries didn't have enough power to give Hitler a real fight. He wasted a lot of resources fighting on the East. And now everything is forgotten, words 'soviet' and 'communist' are like a curse, Germany easily got back to 'friends' list and all soviet army did in this war is occupy poor Estonia along with whole Eastern Europe. This is how they teach kids in USA that it was actually America to defeat mighty Hitler in that war, I guess.

Dead people should be respected, graves shouldn't be vandalized and monuments that are important for millions of people including over 1/4th of your own population should stay where they are if you don't have a real excuse to remove them. 'Nazis like to meet there' is a very poor excuse in my eyes and it's definitely not worth hurting feelings of millions, organizing political scandal and getting all those demonstrations there in Estonia. And doing this right before the 9th May was well.. just lame.

Originally Posted by haku

I can be accused of many things, but not of being pro-American. I mentioned in the USA thread that i didn't agree with the expansion of the US missile shield in Europe. That being said, Russia has to come to terms with the fact that countries like Poland, Czechia or Estonia are now EU and NATO members and no longer Russian satellites, there is and will be EU and NATO military in those countries, it's only normal.
I'm a reasonable person though, i don't agree with those who think that the EU and NATO should expand even further East to Ukraine or the Caucasus, i think the EU and Russia can be satisfied with the Finland-Romania line as the new Iron Curtain.
Russia really shouldn't feel threatened anyway, it's by far the largest country on the planet with 17 million km2 of territory, the EU is only 4 million km2, 4 times smaller! When i was young i had to live with the Red Army stationed only 1000km from where i lived pointing nuclear missiles at us… So i think Russia can live with the EU and NATO as a neighbor (Russian still has enough fire power to annihilate the entire European continent in a couple of hours anyway), especially since the EU and NATO are nowhere near as aggressive as the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact were in the old days, Russia has really nothing to worry about.

I'm quite indifferent to this 'game' personally. I reacted only because I'm one of the few if not the only one respesentative of another side of what you call 'Iron Curtain' here. The way you put it in your message above, it sounded like it was Putin's words that officially started the Cold War II. Big lot of readers of this thread have no other sources of information but western media when it comes to such things. So I just felt like reminding it's something that never stopped and something Mr.Putin would feel bored playing alone.

USA and Russia are strategical opponents.
NATO and USA are allies.
NATO and Russia are strategical opponents.
USA was behaving rather agressivly lately.
USA can use NATO's military bases in critical situation.
NATO coupldn't stop USA from starting the war in Iraq.
USA are planning to build those bases on their own, not as part of NATO (ie they aren't asking for permission of all other members of NATO)

Putin is a president of Russia who has to push interests of this country forward and follow our military doctrine that has NATO and USA as our strategical opponents.
Putin no likes when NATO expands to the East (it's against stragical interests of Russia)
Putin says 'no thanks' when USA suggests to put a part of their nuclear system so close to our borders and so far from their own (it's against strategical interests of Russia)

It's cool if we all were friends and could come to agreement and cooperate against threats that are real rather than strategical. But 'friendship' is something that must come from both sides, you know. Putting a knife to someone's throat is quite a bad way to become friends. If USA puts their bases close to the borders of Russia for strategical reasons (there's no real need to this, right?), Russia minds a lot for same strategical reasons. It's not that hard to understand the reasoning of our authorities. If we are to come to agreements, it has to be voluntary, not because we are in a weak military position. Putin isn't that wrong saying those bases are a step in direction of 'mutual destruction' because it's definitely not a step in the opposite one.

Of course it's not about really pushing buttons and having a war. But strategical power is quite a good argument in many economical and political discussions. These are the rules of the game. So I don't really get the fuss about this 'beginning of the Cold War II'. For me everything happening now is neither surprising nor illogical.

I don't know and don't really care who's right and who's wrong here. I'm just saying that both sides have their reasons.