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EESTI ELU reedel, 29. mail 2020 — Friday, May 29, 2020
Estonia presiding while UN Security Council reaffirms importance of cyberstability ERR, May 2020 English-language supplement to the Estonian weekly “EESTI ELU” Tartu College Publications Founding Chairman: Elmar Tampõld Editor: Laas Leivat 3 Madison Avenue, Toronto, ON M5R 2S2 T: 416-733-4550 • F: 416-733-0944 • E-mail: editor@eestielu.ca Digital: www.eestielu.ca
From patriotism to treason, a classic case revisited In 2109, Major Deniss Metsavas, artillery officer in the Estonian Defence Forces, had confessed to charges of treason, pleaded guilty in court and was sentenced to 15 and a half years of imprison ment. An Estonian citizen, ethni cally Russian, Metsavas had joined the military in 1997. He was a graduate of the military academy, assigned initially to the Presidential Guard, became an artillery specialist, received further training in Finland and had been deployed to Afgha nistan, with NATO forces in Helmand province. At the time of his arrest, Metsavas was serving as a staff officer at Military headquarters in Tallinn in the artillery inspec torate, attached to the depart ment preparing an overall de fence strategy. This position, added to other aspects of his personal history probably made him attractive as a target for recruitment. With his Russian ethnic heri tage, he represented the loyalty of the Russian-speaking minori ty in Estonia. He had become the ‘poster boy’ of the Estonian military. He was their spokes man in the army, one of their own who could, as an example, discredit the Kremlin’s claims about Crimea. He was invited on Russian language television shows and radio programs. He spoke at a high school and then escorted the students to a mili tary exercise. Metsavas was known to speak about patrio tism and about the obvious intent of Russian propaganda. In essence he was seen as something for which Estonia itself wanted to be recognized – inclusiveness, tolerance, open ness. Metsavas had grown up in Lasnamäe, a massive jungle of apartment houses, for mainly the Russian speaking residents of Tallinn. It was built for the influx of Russian workers, from other parts of the Soviet Union, ostensibly to fill the demand for labour as Estonia was indus trialized. Estonians, suffering a post-war housing shortage, were denied the new accommoda tions. It’s said that the deli berate movement of non-Esto
nians to the occupied country by Moscow was a form of ‘cul tural genocide’, a policy forbid den by the Geneva Convention. His father, Pjotr Volin, a manual labourer, had served in the pre-1991 Soviet border guard, a department of the KGB. His mother, an obstetrics nurse, had emigrated to Estonia after marrying Volin. Volin had attended Russian language primary school and was immersed in the Lasnamäe Russian community. But he started to learn Estonian at six or seven years of age and was completely fluent in the lan guage as an adult. Volin’s youthful ambition was to become a soldier in the style of Hollywood action heroes. As a high school gra duate, he enlisted and with suf ficient grades he qualified for the military academy, thus gain ing an officer’s commission. In Metsavas’ case, the GRU (military intelligence) recruit ment of a spy from Estonia faithfully followed trade craft methods as taught in their textbooks: Uncover the back grounds of regular visitors to Russia; target those that would be of benefit to Russia; through surveillance become familiar with his contacts and activities while in Russia; arrange a “honey trap” to involve the tar get in an illegal or embarrassing situation; use the evidence to secure the target’s co-operation. The GRU set the trap during one of Metsavas’ visits to his relatives in Smolensk. He visited a local nightclub, thinly dis guised as sauna/bordello. He ended up in a room with a flirty woman who befriended him. The next morning as he left his aunt’s house to go shopping, Two plain-clothed men ap proached him, identified them selves as police and showed them a signed statement in which the woman claimed she had been raped. If convicted, they said, Metsavas could face 15 years imprisonment. The conversation continued in a police station, where he was shown a video of himself and the woman in bed – a perfectly executed honey trap. (To be continued) LAAS LEIVAT
Participants at an Arriaformula meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC) re cently focusing on cyberstabil ity, conflict prevention and capacity-building stressed that international law applies in cyberspace and that the norms of responsible state behavior hold for all UN member states. Prime Minister Jüri Ratas (Center) and Minister of Foreign Affairs Urmas Reinsalu (Isamaa) both stressed that the COVID-19 crisis has highlight ed the importance of a secure cyberspace, according to a Ministry of Foreign Affairs press release. “This crisis has also de monstrated how crucial it is to have a safe and reliable digital infrastructure, and how we must collectively work toward a more stable and secure cyberspace,” Reinsalu said in his opening remarks. Ratas highlighted the fact that the global COVID-19 crisis has put extra pressure on our critical services in terms of cybersecurity, and thus now is the right time for substantive discussions on cyberstability. Many countries concurred in their own statements as well. Reinsalu also announced that Estonia plans to convene an international meeting soon to address the importance of digi talization in responding to the coronavirus crisis and assisting recovery efforts. According to Estonia’s Am bassador at Large for Cyber security Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar, one of the primary objectives of the events was to clearly enshrine previous UN agreements on cyberstability. “With this meet ing, Estonia showed itself as a driving force when it comes to discussing emerging threats at the UN Security Council,” Tiirmaa-Klaar said. “On an international level, it is impor tant that the conviction shared by Estonia and many countries was heard loud and clear: cyber space is not different from other domains where international law guides state behavior.” James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, one of the experts to brief the UNSC and other UN members, called the event “a major contribution by Estonia and its co-hosts to put this topic in front of the Security Council.” According to Lewis, cyber norms and international law remain the best and most reliable way to build security in cyberspace. More than 60 countries worldwide participated in the event, which was co-organized by UNSC members Belgium, Dominican Republic and In donesia as well as Kenya and held on the Estonian-developed virtual event platform Hybridity.
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The Baltic States, forward together This month marks a special date for the Baltic States, the 30th anniversary of the Declaration on Unity and Co-operation between Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In 2018 The Baltic States celebrated one hundred years as independent states. Our birth coincided with major changes on the political map of the world. At the end of the First World War, the empires broke up and indepen dent countries appeared, including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The shining moment came on August 23rd, 1989 when two million Baltic people literally joined hands to create a 675 kilometre human chain from Cathedral Square in Vilnius past the Freedom Monument in Riga ending at the Hermann Tower in Tallinn. Fifty years earlier on that same day, the no torious Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, setting the stage for the Second World War and the long post-war division of Europe. Fifty years later it was the moment for the Baltic republics to regain their independence for the second time in the 20th century. All three countries regained their independence in the early 1990s and formed the Baltic Council to address their common pressing concerns; strengthening indepen dence, returning their countries to the international arena and securing the withdrawal of Soviet/Russian troops from their sovereign territories, ending the long occupation. The current focus of our co-operation is on regional security, connectivity and en vironment. The present COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the importance of digi talization as a tool to strengthen the functionality of affected ocieties and economies. On March 29th, 2004 the Baltic States joined NATO and on May 1st, 2004 joined the European Union. These two acts firmly demonstrated the Baltic States’ emergence as western oriented countries and valued participants in the EuroAtlantic security architecture. Both organizations embody the values and visions we have held dear since the beginning of the fight for our own statehood. Today, the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany lead NATO multinational battalions stationed in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, respectively. With this deployment to the Baltic region, our NATO allies, including Canada, are helping countries like the Baltic States to deal with new threats and dangers aimed at the heart of western values such as the rule of law and democratic government. Centres of excellence on energy security in Vilnius, strategic communication in Riga and cyber security in Tallinn offer their expertise and experience. All three countries achieved NATO’s target spending of 2 percent of GDP on defence. NATO remains the foundation for our collective de fence and the essential forum for security consultations and decisions among Allies in the Euro-Atlantic area. The European Union membership has brought a new quality of life and impressive economic growth. According to the World Bank, the Baltic States have become high-income economies with very high Human Development Indices. The Baltic States support the EU Neighbourhood Policy, the out reach program to engage eastern and southern European states still working towards deeper integration with the EU. The Baltic States support NATO’s open door policy and en largement of the European Union once the necessary criteria are met. It is a common interest to have stable, progressive and secure neighbours. The COVID-19 crisis has influenced Baltic co-operation at all levels. The Governments have agreed to work together in developing a response. The decision to open borders on May 15th, 2020 and create the first “travel bubble” within the EU was based on the similar epidemiological situation in all three countries. Opening “the Baltic Schengen” – re-estab lishing physical connections and traveling between three countries – was an important first step in returning to normal life in a co-ordinated and safe manner. Continued close co-operation and exchanges of information remains central in eliminating other restrictions, and helping to restore econo mic activity and free movement throughout the European Union. The past thirty years of Baltic co-operation created a shared commitment towards prosperity, safety and security for all its people. To be open, transparent and inclusive for all, confident in its own strong regional identity and focused on sustainable economic growth and development, while be ing fully aware of its ecological vulnerabilities. Our aim is to become a role model of ecological, economic, social and se curity standards and policies, with a vibrant civil society. TOOMAS LUKK, Ambassador of Estonia KĀRLIS EIHENBAUMS, Ambassador of Latvia DARIUS SKUSEVIČIUS, Ambassador of Lithuania
