NATO rebukes Russia over Estonia statue dispute
NATO has stepped into the dispute between Russia and Estonia over a Soviet-era statue, asking that Moscow put a stop to the violence outside the Estonian embassy in the Russian capital.
In a statement issued on Thursday (3 May), the organisation said it was "deeply concerned by threats to the physical safety of Estonian diplomatic staff, including the ambassador, in Moscow, as well as intimidation at the Estonian embassy."
"These actions are unacceptable and must be stopped immediately; tensions over the Soviet war memorial and graves in Estonia must be resolved diplomatically between the two countries," it continued.
The NATO comment comes amid escalating tension between Moscow and Tallinn concerning Estonia's decision to move a bronze statue of a soldier erected by the then Soviet authorities in 1947.
The Bronze Soldier is seen by many Russians as a testament to the Soviet Union's painful contribution to the World War II effort, but it is regarded by most Estonians as a symbol of 20th century Soviet oppression.
The authorities shifted the statue from the centre of Tallinn to a military cemetery last week, sparking riots in the Estonian capital - around one quarter of Estonia's 1.3 million population is ethnically Russian. The "siege" of Estonia's embassy in Moscow began around the same time.
Vienna Convention
The EU has also called on Russia to put a halt to the violence in Moscow, taking the unusually quick step of issuing a formal request for Russia to fall in line with the UN's so-called Vienna Convention on diplomatic protection.
But Russia denies it is in the wrong, saying instead that Estonia's "provocative" actions have led to the dispute between the two countries.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that moving the statue has "led to seriously negative consequences for Russian-Estonian relations," according to the BBC.
The Russian foreign ministry also spoke with the Moscow ambassadors of the European Commission, Germany and Portugal (the current and next EU presidencies, respectively) on Wednesday night, Reuters reports.
Russian officials expressed "deep bewilderment" at the meeting about what they called the "lack of a principled assessment by the European Union of the actions of the Tallinn government."
Energy dimension to political row
In the meantime, Moscow has also halted rail supplies of oil to the small Baltic state.
Although it has denied the oil move is politically-motivated, the action is likely to once more raise EU fears about Russia's willingness to use its vast oil and gas resources as political weapons.
The same fears were sparked last year when Moscow cut off gas supplies to Ukraine and again this year, when it stopped gas supplies to Belarus.
The two incidents prompted a major rethink of EU energy policy, a key aim of which has now become to reduce EU dependency on Russian oil and gas in future.
The Russia-Estonia dispute is also taking place within the wider context of Moscow's unhappiness over NATO's recent expansion to include several countries - Estonia among them - that were previously within the Soviet sphere of influence.
EU Observer