Russia announced the expulsion of Estonia’s ambassador and accused the country of “absolute Russophobia” this Monday (23). The decision comes about ten days after the Baltic Republic ordered the removal of 21 Russian diplomats, justified as an attempt to achieve parity between the representations of the two nations – at the time, the Estonian Chancellor, Urmas Reinsalu, said there were no reasons to justify the size of the Russian embassy, which had 44 people.
The folder gave an ultimatum to the Estonian ambassador in Moscow, who should leave his post by February 7 – the countries will be represented in their respective capitals by interim trade officials. Estonia, for its part, said it “respects the principle of reciprocity in relations with Russia” and ordered the Russian ambassador in Tallinn to leave the country on the same date.
In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Tallinn had raised hostility towards Moscow “to the level of state policy” and that in recent years it had “deliberately destroyed a whole range of relations with Russia”. Commenting on the incident, Chancellery spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that “the Estonian regime got what it deserved.”
This is the first time that Russia has expelled the ambassador of a member country of the European Union since the beginning of the Ukraine War. The diplomatic skirmish comes at a time when Estonia — which is part of NATO, the Western military alliance — is expressing increasing support for Ukraine.
Last week, Tallinn joined several other European countries in announcing the shipment of more weapons to the invaded country. Alongside its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania, it also sought to increase pressure on Germany to deploy Leopard main battle tanks to the front.
Late last week, nations backing Ukraine’s war effort against the Russian invasion failed to agree on sending tanks to Kiev at a much-anticipated meeting at the US base in Ramstein, Germany. “There are good reasons for and against the rendition, and in view of the overall situation of a war that has now lasted almost a year, all the pros and cons have to be weighed carefully,” said German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. to the horror of the other ministers present.
Kremlin hard-line representative Dmitri Medvedev, who presided the country on behalf of Vladimir Putin from 2008 to 2012, went to Telegram to comment on the meeting of the group of 50 countries led by NATO forces. “Underdeveloped political revelers repeat as a mantra: ‘To obtain peace, Russia must lose’. The elementary conclusion never occurs to them: the defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war can lead to nuclear war. Nuclear powers do not lose conflicts in which their fate is at stake.”
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