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EESTI ELU reedel, 9. septembril 2022 — Friday, September 9, 2022
Nr. 36
CONSULATE GENERAL OF ESTONIA
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
War killings, at the covert front In 2002 Vladimir Putin authorized a new law making extra-judicial killings legal. It gave Russian authorities wide-ranging official permis sion to assassinate foreign enemies and domestic oppo nents at both home and abroad. The legislation allowed Putin to boost the Czarist/Soviet/ Russian historical tradition of “wet affairs” and “special ser vices”. Named “On Countering Extreme Activity”, the law legalizes targeted assassinations for not only threatening national security, but also for “crimes” such as “diminishing national dignity” and “publicly express ing slander or false accusations of persons who hold Russian government positions”. The actual “special tasks”, usually carried by Russian mili tary intelligence operatives, are acts of intimidation, murder, tragic accidents, and include kidnappings, “forced suicides” such as making victims jump from a window, car bombings and a variety of staged explosions. Thus, one cannot accept the veracity of the government’s denials that they were involved in the most recent death of Lukoil chief Ravil Maganov, who died by falling from a win dow in Russia. Add to this, the fall from a window of business man Dan Rapoport, of Russian heritage, also recently, but in Washington. This type of killing had long ago become one of the favourites for Kremlin assas sins. While the Washington po lice didn’t consider Rapo port’s death to be suspicious, Russia is known to have been the only suspect in numerous killings. The murder of opponents within Russia has always been in Putin’s playbook. Many con sider it to be highly likely that he ordered the FSB to bomb apartment buildings in Moscow, killing some 300 residents in 1999. Chechen terrorists were then blamed, giving Russia justification to attack Chechnya. Putin’s popularity sored, help ing him win the presidency from his job as FSB chief in 2000. In 2002 he ramped up the “wet affairs” assignments which included eliminating those deemed to be “slandering” government officials. The current, Putin-authorized killings are an effective way for
the Kremlin to intimidate live opponents while flaunting its evasion from justice in the world community. This tradition of state-sanctioned murder has a long history stretching back to Czarist Russia, and hundreds of deaths have been recorded. Not all are successful. The most famous is the failed attempt at the poisoning of Rasputin, a hated religious figure who seemed to have the czar’s wife under his spell. Rasputin was immune to the cyanide-laced food he was offered and had to be shot. Because the Kremlin has always found it necessary to eliminate its adversaries, Russian formal state-sponsored assassinations is not a new de velopment. Government killings were legalized in 1936 and assigned to a group in the Interior Ministry, known as the “Directorate of Special Tasks”, targeting ethnic Russians. In the 1950, the KGB formed its “13th Department”, to carry out “executive action”. Often agonizing methods are use in the murders to send a message to others, especially Russians. The tortuous initial attempt on Rasputin was echoed some hundred years later in 2018 when a military grade nerve agent failed to kill former Russian intelligence operative Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. Another failed task was the attempted poisoning of Bulgarian Emilian Gebrev in 2015. Most other assassination assignments succeed. Aleksan der Litvinenko, a former FSB intelligence officer who defected to the UK, was murdered in 2006 by Russian GRU operatives using the radioactive agent polonium. Political opponent Boris Nemtsov was shot on a Moscow bridge in 2015. Former Russian Duma member Denis Voronenko was gunned down on a Kyiv street in 2017. In 2015, Putin’s ex-advisor, Mik hail Lesin was found dead with a broken neck in a Washington Beltway hotel. This list of Kremlin’s sanctioned victims is endless. Putin chooses his prey from a variety of categories, often enemies of him personally: p olitical opponents, those branded as traitors, anti corrup tion advocates, truth-seeking
Kolga presents to Parliamentary committee via ZOOM.
Kolga’s remarks to recent session of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the committee for the opportunity to appear before you today. Over the past months Russia has threatened to starve vulner able nations around the world by blockading millions of tons of Ukrainian grain, while shell ing and bombing critical Ukrainian agricultural infra structure to induce a global grain shortage. At the same time, Russia has falsely blamed Western and Canadian sanctions for causing this food crisis despite the fact that our sanctions do not affect any Ukrainian agricultural infrastructure or the transport of grain and food to those nations that rely on it. Russia’s weaponization of hunger is matched in cruelty by its use of energy to freeze Russia’s neighbours. Many Europeans experienced this first hand when Russia cut all gas supplies transiting Ukraine in January 2009. Canadians only recently be came aware of Putins’ energy warfare after Global Affairs granted Gazprom a sanctions exemption to permit the repair in Canada of turbines that compress gas exported from Russia through the Nordstream pipeline to Europe. However, the Kremlin’s use of energy as a point of geo political leverage did not emerge out of a vacuum.
journalists, business rivals. Wellknown investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, reporting on atrocities by Russian forces in Chechnya, was gunned down in her apartment on Putin’s birthday in 2015. Journalists are some of the Kremlin’s recent favourite tar gets. Since 1992, 82 Russians have been tallied. Between March and May, 28 have been murdered in Ukraine – journal ists of many different nationali ties. The total number of Russian journalists who have disappeared, both in Ukraine since the invasion started, in Russia and elsewhere, is un known. Just like the failures with Skripal and Gebrev, many other attempts have ended in failure. Some suggest that this is a sign of declining professionalism – that the sheer volume recently cannot maintain quality control. But even an unsuccessful
New address as of September 26: 365 Bloor St. E, Ste 1610 Toronto, ON M4W 3L4 Phone, fax and email remain the same: 416-461-0764, faks 416-461-0448 email: consul@heinsooinsurance.ca
The next meeting of the Estonian government’s Global Estonian Advisory Committee will be held in Tallinn on September 30th. The meeting will be chaired by special ambassador Marin Mõttus, and several Estonian ministers, including Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu will attend. Reet Marten Sehr is the Estonian Canadian representative on the committee and will provide feedback from EKN and Estonian organizations in Canada on the first phase of imple mentation. The program was ratified by Estonian parliament in 2021 and implementation began in January 2022. Program link: https://www.vm.ee/rahvusvaheline-suht lus-uleilmne-eestlus/uleilmne-eestlus In order to consolidate feedback, please email responses to Reet at reetsehr@gmail.com by September 20th at the latest. In order to better represent the needs of Estonian Canadians, we are requesting responses to the following questions: 1. How familiar are you with the content of the Global Estonian Program (Üleilmse eestluse tegevuskava)? 2. How often do you use the globalestonian.com website to search for and share information? 3. How aware are you of the Estonian government’s grant applications and funding process? 4. Have you applied for a grant in 2022? 5. What are your organization’s needs and expectations for future cooperation with the Estonian government? KAIRI HEMINGWAY President, Estonian Central Council in Canada
The former Vice President of Gazprom Bank, Igor Volobuyev, told a Polish newspaper in May how he was instructed by Gazprom executives to develop anti-Ukrainian narratives al ready in 2005, when Ukraine’s political trajectory shifted towards Europe.
a ssassination could have its use fulness. It’s a way of showing the middle finger to the West. They may very well want the West to know their brazen capabilities. Up to now they’ve been immune to any judicial recourse. Many victims of Putin’s covert killings serve as examples of the fate of anyone deemed betraying or cheating the Krem lin. Targeted assassinations are not new in the covert intelli gence world. But the use of plausible deniability seems to have been abandoned. Russia is comfortable with hunting down victims worldwide and showing contempt for the laws of the respective country. The Kremlin has boosted the pace of its extrajudicial death sentences since its assault on Ukraine in 2014. Putin’s unjustified invasion this year is state-sanctioned murder on a massive scale
Gazprom are made inside the Russian presidential administra tion. If Canada’s decision to grant Gazprom a sanctions waiver was intended to call Putin’s bluff – that mission has been accomplished. It is now clear that our sanc tions did not impair Gazprom’s ability to pump gas through the Nordstream pipeline. As we’ve heard from previous witnesses today: they never were. Underscoring the false nature of Russia’s accusations was a recent report published by the BBC which exposed massive gas flares at Gazprom’s Porto vaya compression station near the Russian starting point of the NordStream pipeline. Flaring is a process by which gas producers burn off large quantities of gas for sustained periods of time. According to that report, 10 million dollars of gas are being burned off by Gazprom each day – gas which could other wise be pumped through Nordstream to Germany and Europe, or through existing pipelines that transit Ukraine and Poland. Indeed, as other witnesses have pointed out, the Kremlin has now explicitly stated that gas will only start flowing through Nordstream once Canadian and Western sanctions have been lifted. This is black mail.
LAAS LEIVAT
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He also created anti-Geor gian narratives in 2008, when Russia invaded South Ossetia and Abkhazia. According to Volobuyev, all decisions within
