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16 February, 2018


- Text of the Indictment
(U.S. Department of Justice)
["The indictment represents the first charges by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, for meddling in the 2016 presidential election - the fundamental crime that he was assigned to investigate." - NY Times]


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- Archive:

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Friday 16. 
February
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✔︎ Estonian centennial events leading up to Independence Day
(ERR)



✔︎ Russian troll farm, 13 suspects indicted for interference in U.S. election
(Various sources)
"Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is leading the probe into Russian interference in the U.S. election, did not attend the press briefing about the indictment, but the 37 pages of charges laid out an ambitious effort in late 2016 to push U.S. voters toward then-candidate Donald Trump and away from Democrat Hillary Clinton."
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"Prosecutors said the group kept a list of real Americans who their employees had contacted using false personas and had asked to assist the effort. The list, which numbered over 100 people by late August 2016, included the U.S. citizen's contact information, a summary of each person's political views and the activities the Russians had asked them to undertake."
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- USA vandekohus esitas 13 Vene kodanikule süüdistuse valimistesse sekkumises
(ERR)
"USA eriprokurör Robert Mueller tegi reedel teatavaks vandekohtu süüdistuse 13 Vene kodanikule ja kolmele firmale Ühendriikide presidendivalimistesse sekkumise eest.
Süüdistatavad osalesid alates 2014. aastast tänaseni vandenõus sekkuda USA poliitilisse ja valimisprotsessi, muuhulgas 2016. aasta presidendivalimistesse, teatas eriprokuröri büroo."




- Venemaa tähistab Punaarmee loomise 100. aastapäeva Ivangorodis
(ERR | Postimees)
"Venemaa tähistab 22. veebruaril Punaarmee loomise 100. aastapäeva Narva jõe ääres Ivangorodis tavapäratu sõjatehnika demonstratsiooniga. ... samuti Punaarmee loomisajast pärit vormiriietust ja relvastust. Linlastele demonstreeritakse tanke T-72, iseliikuvaid suurtükke ja soomustehnikat, samuti teevad käsivõitluse etteaste sõjakooli kursandid." 
--



- Russia to celebrate Red Army anniversary across the river from Narva
(ERR)
"On Feb. 22 Russia will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the creation of the Red Army in the town of Ivangorod …"




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Helsinki-Tallinn Tunnel
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- £14.2bn Finland to Estonia undersea mega-tunnel plans
(New Civil Engineer)
"The mega-project will run between the capitals Tallinn and Helsinki at a maximum depth of 250m for the most part through solid crystalline bedrock under the channel, emerging into Estonia through softer sediments of Ediacara and Blue Clay."
--
"To aid construction of the tunnel, FinEst Link said two, 400m x 300m artificial islands, located at places with water depths of 15m and 20m, would be built within the channel using the excavated material from the tunnel construction. These will provide ventilation, access and energy supplies to the tunnel below."

- Video Presentation
(YouTube)

- Report: Helsinki-Tallinn Transport Link Feasibility Study
(FinEst Link - PDF)
"The concept of an undersea railway tunnel, as studied in the FinEst Link project, con- nects Helsinki-Vantaa airport and Ülemiste airport in Tallinn where it connects to Rail Baltica and onwards to the Central and Eastern European railway network."

- Helsinki-Tallinn’s €20bn rail tunnel could be open by 2040
(Global Rail News)
"A number of consultancies have helped to produce the project’s feasibility study, which has just been published, but there’s one big problem: finance."

- Vision of subsea tunnel crossing Gulf of Finland triggers controversy
(Xinhua - China)

- Meren alle louhittavan rautatietunnelin hinta-arvio kaksinkertaistui 20 miljardiin euroon
(Helsingin Sanomat - 8. Feb.)






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Thursday 15. 
February
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- Arvamus: Russofoobid ja Estofoobid – kes nad sellised on?
Andrei Kuzitškin
(Postimees)
"Nii on ka omal ajal Eestis sündinud auhind «Aasta russofoob» vaikselt välja surnud, sest selle loojad ei ole kuidagi suutnud leida kedagi, kes süstemaatiliselt piiraks vene keele kasutamist."



- Commentary: In Munich, Clinging to Nostalgia
by Judy Dempsey
(Carnegie Europe)
"The West is ill-equipped to deal with the post-1945 order. … This is because digitization is changing everything - from politics and political representation to crucial questions concerning influence and stability, power, democratic governance, and transparency. … China is in the lead when it comes to recognizing how to channel and control digitization. It has erected firewalls and built sophisticated surveillance systems to spy on and control its own people.”
—
"The West, meanwhile, has been far too slow to use digitization to strengthen its democracies and to protect and project its values."



- NATO: German military short on tanks for NATO mission
(Deutsche Welle)
"The German military has secretly admitted that it can't fulfill its promises to NATO, according to documents leaked to Die Welt newspaper on Thursday. ...Specifically, the Bundeswehr's ninth tank brigade in Münster only has nine operational Leopard 2 tanks — even though it promised to have 44 ready for the VJTF — and only three of the promised 14 Marder armored infantry vehicles.”
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"The paper also revealed the reason for this shortfall: a lack of spare parts and the high cost and time needed to maintain the vehicles. It added that it was also lacking night-vision equipment, automatic grenade launchers, winter clothing and body armor. The German air force is also struggling to cover its NATO duties …”
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"Mark Galeotti, senior researcher and head of the Prague-based Center for European Security, said that "Germany's various military woes" were no secret to the rest of NATO. "For a long time, Germany has under-spent dramatically, and, let's be honest, wrapped itself in the mantle of its non-militarist foreign policy," he told DW, before adding that it had long been clear that the country hadn't been pulling its weight in the alliance."





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Who Is Christopher Steele?
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- From a 14. Feb. opinion piece entitled: "Christopher Steele is a hero"
(Washington Post)
"We know that he spent two decades as an officer in Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, sometimes known as “MI6”), where he enjoyed the highest esteem from his own bosses as well as his counterparts in the U.S. intelligence community. We know that he spent long stints in Russia, where he built up his knowledge of the country and language and cultivated a wide-ranging network of contacts. At one point he ran the SIS Russia Desk."
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"And we know that one of his SIS jobs included working in Afghanistan with British and U.S. special forces who were hunting down terrorists. This is a man who put his own life on the line for the sake of his country’s close alliance with the United States — a man who, in July and October 2016, correspondingly saw it as a matter of duty to approach old colleagues in the FBI when he realized he had stumbled onto a breathtaking threat to U.S. national security."
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"Steele knows only too well what happens to people who get in Putin’s way. Yet even this awareness didn’t divert him from his path as he began to expose the Trump-Russia nexus. There was a reason why he and his family went into hiding when his name was first made public last year. … The risks are real.”
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"This, too, suggests just how high the stakes are — so much higher than the world of Washington’s petty partisan crusades. This is the world of Kremlin intrigue, where mysterious deaths are a common tool of statecraft. This is the world that Christopher Steele had to plumb, at considerable personal risk to himself, to chart Trump’s illicit entanglements."




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Wednesday 14. 
February
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- Rail Baltic jälle sammu jagu lähemal
(Äripäev)
"Riigihalduse minister kehtestas Harjumaa, Raplamaa ja Pärnumaa maakonnaplaneeringud, mille eesmärk oli leida sobivaim asukoht kavandatava Rail Balticu raudtee trassi koridoridele."



- The Brussels to-do list
by Edward Lucas
(CEPA)
"Six tasks face NATO as it counts down to its summit in Brussels in July."



- E-Democracy in the European Union: Lessons from Estonia
(FPRI)
"In 2017, the Wired magazine called the country “the most advanced digital society in the world." … The European Union is following Estonia’s lead by now emphasizing e-solutions.”



- EU: How 'customs unions' work
(Politico-Europe)
"A customs union is a group of countries that have decided to make trade easier among them by dropping customs checks within the union and charging the same import duties on the group’s external borders. …"



- Report: Envisioning a Russia-NATO Conflict - Implications for Deterrence Stability
(European Leadership Network)
"The report reaches three basic conclusions:"
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"Once a Russia-NATO conflict is underway, the prospects of controlling escalation and terminating a conflict according to any pre-planned scenario are disturbingly small."
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"The probability of a conflict between Russia and NATO is currently low and it is avoidable."
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"Yet, the risks of an inadvertent outbreak of conflict should be the main focus of attention, as it is the most likely path to a direct clash."




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Tuesday 13. 
February
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✔︎ Estonian Spies Understand the Russian Threat
by Leonid Bershidsky
(Bloomberg)
"Finally, a comprehensive look at Putin's ambitions backed by real expertise."



- Venemaa uus logo peidab propagandasõnumit
(Propastop)

- Russia’s new logo has a hidden propaganda message
(Propastop)



- Uus kaitseväe arengukava näeb ette rohkem ajateenijaid ja tehnikat
(ERR)
—



- Tartu mänguasjamuuseumis avatakse "Mängime sajaga!”
(ERR)


DIGAR lauamäng foto:



- NATO confirms half of allies expected to meet spending goal
(The Hill)
"Clearly NATO has reversed what was a downward trend, and so now we're well into the second year, I believe, where the nations are spending more on defense.”

- Briti major Eestis: Vene oht ei rõhu meid iga päev, näitame NATO lähenemist muutunud poliitilisele olukorrale
(Delfi)



- British Troops battle freezing conditions and allies in Estonia war games
(Various sources)
—
—

- Welsh soldiers suffer rugby woe in Estonian forest
(Daily Mail - Uk)
"Soldiers from the 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh, currently deployed in the Baltic state as part of Nato’s Enhanced Forward Presence (eFP), caught up on the game huddled around a laptop balanced on ration pack boxes. Amongst an array of Warrior armoured vehicles, support trucks and Challenger 2 tanks, and despite temperatures dropping to -6C, keen rugby supporters followed the twist and turns of the game."




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Monday 12. 
February
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- Eesti vahetas Vene salakuulaja Raivo Susi vastu
(ERR)
"Eesti Vabariik ja Venemaa Föderatsioon vahetasid laupäeval Eestis salakuulamise eest süüdi mõistetud Venemaa kodaniku Artjom Zintšenko Venemaal spionaažis süüdi mõistetud Eesti kodaniku Raivo Susi vastu. Vahetus toimus Koidula piiripunktis kella kümne ajal."

- Russia and Estonia exchange president-pardoned spies
(BNN | Euronews)
"Estonian aviation technology businessman Raivo Susi was swapped for Russian national Artyom Zinchenko at the Koidula border post in south-eastern Estonia."
—



- Soome osaleb tänavu 14 NATO õppusel
(ERR)



- Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue to be lit up in Estonian national colours
(Estonian World)



- Latvia Focuses on Improving Societal Resilience and Increasing Size of National Guard
(Jamestown)
"In late January 2018, the Ministry of Defense of Latvia reported plans to expand the National Guard (Zemessardzes) force to 12,000 by 2027."







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Russia
“Trust No One"
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- The Trojan Horse of Russian Gas
(Foreign Policy)
"Energy resources aren’t just a commodity – they’re a vehicle for Russia’s political ambitions."



- Putin’s Trolls Are Targeting Trump’s GOP Critics - Especially John McCain
(Mother Jones)
[Senator McCain has been a very good friend to the Baltics and has visited Estonia many, many times.]
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"While the vast majority of the attacks from the 600 Twitter accounts tracked in real time by the Hamilton 68 dashboard are aimed at Democrats, the trolls also turn their sights on Republicans who sometimes stand up to Trump. Repeat targets have included Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. National security adviser H.R. McMaster has also been a target. But no Republican has faced more persistent wrath from the Russian-linked accounts than McCain, says Bret Schafer, an analyst for the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a group of national-security experts behind the dashboard working to expose Kremlin meddling in US politics. And those attacks on McCain have intensified in recent weeks."

- Hamilton 68 Dashboard
"Activity from 600 monitored Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations."



- Palgasõdurid, kellest Kreml midagi ei tea, on ravil Moskvas ja Peterburis
(ERR | Bloomberg)
"Kaks palgasõduritega seotud inimest on meediale kinnitanud, et Deir Ezzori provintsi õhurünnakus haavata saanud palgasõdurid on toodud Moskvas ja Peterburis asuvatesse haiglatesse. Hukkunute arv jätkab kasvamist, sest mõnede meeste vigastused on rasked ja on olnud neid, kes on surnud ka juba Venemaal haiglas …"

"Even as the Kremlin denies any official link to them, scores of Russian mercenaries wounded in U.S. strikes in Syria are being treated at Defense Ministry hospitals."



- The Real Syrian Story is Now Very Much in Moscow
(Window on Eurasia)

- Russian Mercenary Debacle in Syria is Putin’s ‘Bay of Pigs’
(Window on Eurasia)



- The Curious Case of the Television Star Running Against Vladimir Putin
By Masha Gessen
(The New Yorker)
“No one gets on the Presidential ballot without Putin’s permission."



- In Russia, a grass-roots bid to expose Stalin's ‘Great Terror’
by Fred Weir
(Christian Science Monitor)
"Just about every former Soviet city has a place outside town, usually a forest or piece of scrubland, where Joseph Stalin’s secret police brought thousands of executed “enemies of the people” and dumped them into mass graves, especially during the nightmare years of the Great Terror of 1936-38. …”



- The Perils of Change: Russians’ Mixed Attitudes Toward Reform
(Carnegie Moscow Center)
"Many in Russia often view the absence of change as a positive, not a negative, phenomenon. Neither the country’s core ruling elite nor many ordinary Russians see a clear need for modernization, which they perceive to be a liberal project. … In the early 2000s, he satisfied the population’s demand for a return to order and stability. In 2014, with his forced takeover of Crimea, he fed their yearning for a restoration of Russia’s great-power status. These changes have been designed to preserve the existing political system, not to reform it."



- The Surprising Success of Putinomics
(Foreign Affairs)
"Behind Putin's Formula for Holding Onto Power"



- Intelligence officials say Russia intent on disrupting U.S. elections
(Politico-Europe | New York Times)
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- A Survivalist Underground Emerges in Russia
(Window on Eurasia)
"Survivalists, who actively prepare for wars and other disasters often by withdrawing from the broader society, emerged first in the United States in the 1970s. They had no counterparts in the Soviet Union; but now ever more Russians are adopting survivalist strategies and can even be said to form a loosely organized underground movement.”
—
"Russian survivalists, Roman Kuzminov, one of their number says, are very different than their American counterparts in that Americans build bunkers but the Russians rely on the country’s enormous vacant spaces and thus plan to live more nomadically in rural areas in the event of a war, accident or other disaster."



- U.S. Secretly Negotiated With Russians To Buy Stolen Nsa Documents
 by James Risen
(The Intercept)

- Podcast: Inside The Nsa’s Secret Channel To Russia
(The Intercept)


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Posted by at

09 February, 2018



✔︎ President Kaljulaid traveled to South Korea  (Korea Times)

✔︎ Blog: Pyeongchangis süttis olümpiatuli (Postimees)

✔︎ Helsinki-Tallinn tunnel would cost 16 billion euros (Yle)

✔︎ Patarei Prison in Tallinn to be converted into a museum  of communist crimes  (Eesti Mälu Instituut)

✔︎ Graveyard of 200-year-old warships was found off Finland's coast, including 10 sail and oar hybrid vessels and schooners, 9 half-schooners, 16 galleys, 4 gun prams and floating batteries, 7 bomb vessels, 5 gun sloops, etc...  (Yle)
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- 2014 to 2018 Archive:



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Friday 9. 
February
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✔︎ The Baltic States Turn 100
by Kersti Kaljulaid
(WSJ)
"Throughout our development we have retained a sense of both gratitude and obligation. I want to thank all those American and Western sportsmen who gave up their chance of Olympic gold for maintenance of our rules-based world. I want to thank all those people, including our own Baltic diaspora in Western countries, who used their freedom of speech to speak up for us when we could not. I want to thank the international community for insisting on value-based rules through those painful years, but also afterward, during the most hopeful years of Baltic development, inviting us to join NATO and the EU."

PDF:

 Opening Ceremony of 2018 Winter Olympics
Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium
Kersti Kaljulaid Facebook post 9. February 2018

- Jüri Ratas kohtus paavst Franciscusega
(Postimees | ERR)
"Peaminister Jüri Ratas ja paavst Franciscus keskendusid tänasel kohtumisel sõjategevusest tingitud humanitaarkriisidele ning sellele, kuidas neile konfliktidele rahumeelseid lahendusi leida."
—



- Patarei Prison: International Museum of the Crimes of Communism
(Eesti Mälu Instituut | Up North)
"The Estonian Institute of Historical Memory is holding an international design competition to find the best designs for an international museum of the crimes of communism, which is to be established in Tallinn. … The Museum and International Research Centre of Crimes of Communism is the only centre in Estonia and the surrounding region to directly investigate the history of countries and peoples that fell victim to the crimes of communist regimes as a consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact."
—



- Graveyard of 200-year-old warships found off Finland's coastal city of Kotka
(Yle)
"The Battle of Svensksund (the Swedish name for the strait) was a naval battle between the Swedish and Russian fleets that took place in 1790. The Swedes dealt out a devasting defeat, which ended the Russo-Swedish War that had started two years earlier. It's considered the largest naval battle in the Baltic Sea."
--
'The Russians lost at least half of their 14,000 men in the fighting, along with 10 sail and oar hybrid vessels and schooners, 9 half-schooners, 16 galleys, 4 gun prams and floating batteries, 7 bomb vessels, 5 gun sloops and several other small vessels. The Swedes lost just 1 warship, five minor vessels and 300 men."




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Thursday 8. 
February
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- Estonian intelligence: Threat of direct Russian military attack low
(ERR)
“The EFIS Director General Mikk Marran wrote in the foreword of the report: "Our aim is to cover the events in Russia that tend all too often to reach the public in a distorted or incomplete fashion. The Putin regime is masterful at fostering a false image and creating deceptions. Zapad 2017, the major Russian military exercise held in Western Russia last fall, was cited as a vivid example of this."



✔︎ Report: “International Security and Estonia 2018"
EFIS Director General Mikk Marran
(Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service)
[The 72 page pdf is also in the EstoNews archive.]

- 2nd Report: "Munich Security Report 2018"
(Munich Security Conference Foundation)
[Pages 14 thru 19 covers the EU, entitled "EU: Union Crack?”]



- Is There A Growing Strategic Gap Between America And Europe?
(War on the Rocks)
“… the U.S. contribution in Poland is more capable of fighting a potential aggressor while multinational battalions in the Baltic states are more likely to resemble the classical tripwire forces of the Cold War, designed to deter aggression through the threat of immediate escalation to full-blown conflict with NATO. This is of course due to the differences in scale between American and European military capabilities. But it also shows a different appreciation of the practice of the deterrent stance: Where the United States insists on the need for credible capabilities to contain Russian aggression, Western Europeans prefer to play on the ambiguity of the response in the event of tripwire violations. Finally, it shows a hierarchy of priorities: The Europeans can agree to build up the tripwire to a certain degree, but will not accept going all the way in terms of high readiness and follow-on forces."



- Why Moscow fears NATO
(CEPA)
"Moscow has manufactured a thick mist of disinformation about NATO in order to disguise its expansionist policies in Eastern Europe. … Russia’s officials also contend that NATO captured the post-communist countries and threatened Russia’s borders. In reality, NATO enlargement over the past 20 years has been a voluntary process initiated by each aspirant state. … Moreover, no neighboring country has voiced claims to Russia’s territory or its resources. Above all, NATO, in its doctrine, exercises, military posture and force dispositions is neither a threat to Russia’s statehood nor a danger to its territorial integrity.”
—
"Despite these facts, the Kremlin has a troika of fears about NATO. ..."



- Kes esindab Eestit PyeongChangis?
(ERR)
“Sel aastal osaleb mängudel 22 Eesti sportlast. Kõige rohkemate sportlastega oleme esindatud laske- ja murdmaasuustamises, kuid silma tasub peal hoida ka talendikatel kahevõistlejatel, noortel suusahüppajatel ja mäesuusatajatel."



- Eline Mets kogub maailmas kuulsust oma enneolematu mootorrattakirega
(Õhtuleht - TV3)
"Maailmas pole just väga palju naisi, kes teenivad raha mootorratastega sõites või nendega filmides ja reklaamides osaledes. Üks Eesti tüdruk Kanadas Vancouveris on aga murdmas filmimaailma just tänu oma kirele motonduse vastu."



- “Diaries of Badass Chicks” 
(Storyhive)
[Estonian-born Eline Mets of Vancouver is an actress, producer, director, and a motorcycle enthusiast producing the web-based series “Diaries of Badass Chicks”.]
—
"Alex, a 30-year old law student gets back into motocross racing. She finds new friends, but also experiences the ups and downs of being a woman in a male-dominated sport."










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Wednesday 7. 
February
_____________


- Eesti delegatsioon võeti ametlikult olümpiaküla liikmeks
(Delfi)

- Kaljulaid in South Korea
(The Korea Times)
"The agreement came in a bilateral summit between the leaders. Kaljulaid arrived here earlier in the day, becoming the first Estonian head of state to visit South Korea since the countries established diplomatic ties in 1991, according to Cheong Wa Dae. She is scheduled to return home Monday following her participation in the opening ceremony of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games, which start Friday."

- Kaljulaid opens first e-Residency Collection Centre in Seoul
(ERR)



- Fears after Russian hackers target US drones
(Euronews)
"The hacking is not that surprising. Drone technology is a very desired technology and Russia has made a big effort to acquire this technology over the past couple years. These are multi-role drones that can carry out both surveillance and reconnaissance and even carry out strikes. Now, the drones that Russia has acquired so far are the micro-UAVs that are really limited to artillery spotting or battlefield reconnaissance and surveillance, but the drones that they're looking to acquire are more sophisticated and can carry out more types of missions than the ones they have now."



- Tallinna-Helsingi tunnel läheb maksma ligi 16 miljardit eurot
(Ärileht | ERR)
—



- Report: Helsinki-Tallinn tunnel would cost 16 billion euros
(Yle | US News)
—



- Mis tööd teevad doktorikraadiga inimesed?
(ERR)
"Uuringu üks autoreid, TÜ majandusteaduskonna kvalitatiivuuringute teadur Eneli Kindsiko sõnas, et viimase dekaadi jooksul joonistub välja 20-50-30 muster. See tähendab, et 20 protsenti doktorantidest suudab kaitsmiseni jõuda enne 30. eluaastat, 50 protsenti pälvib kraadi vanuses 30-39 ning 30 protsenti teeb seda vanuses 40+."



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Tuesday 6. 
February
_____________


- Ämari: Italian airmen ready to escort Russian aircraft
(Postimees)

- NATO allies to rehearse wintertime warfare
(ERR)



- Podcast Interview: Victoria Nuland 
By Susan B. Glasser
(Global Politico)
"Victoria Nuland served five presidents and 11 secretaries of state in her 32 years in the foreign service. In our wide-ranging interview about a career that began with Ronald Reagan and ended with her fears that Trump would junk the NATO alliance she had worked hard to sustain, Nuland joked that she had a “Forrest Gump”-like knack for ending up in the midst of historic events, like being in Moscow for the August 1991 coup that spelled the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union."



- The Frightening Far-Right Militia That’s Marching in Ukraine’s Streets, Promising to Bring ‘Order’
by Anna Nemtsova
(The Daily Beast)
"After more than three years of war, military marches and rallies on the streets did not surprise anybody in Ukraine; there was nothing unusual, either, in the words “National Squad” written on the backs of the marching men—far-right militia constantly challenge the government, threatening President Petro Poroshenko with another revolution.”
—
"The commander of the Azov Battalion, the former founder of ultra-nationalist movement “Social-National Assembly” Andriy Biletsky, also known as “White Leader,” personally took the oath from members of the militia for “faithful service to the Ukrainian people.”
--
"Biletsky’s party, the National Corps, is against Ukraine joining the European Union and NATO. He says he thinks the EU wouldn’t let Ukraine join, and that he is “not a fan of NATO.” 




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Monday 5. 
February
_____________


- Kuidas hakkab sissetungijaid eemal hoidma Eesti uus, arvatust palju kallimaks minev idapiir
(Delfi | Postimees)



—



- Russia permanently stationing nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad
(Various sources)
--
--
--



- Toomas Hendrik Ilves and Francis Fukuyama are not optimistic that liberal democracy will survive the 21st century
(Medium)
"President Ilves pointed to a recent article that descibed declining faith in democratic systems by younger generations. "Citizens in a number of supposedly consolidated democracies in North America and Western Europe have not only grown more critical of their political leaders. Rather, they have also become more cynical about the value of democracy as a political system, less hopeful that anything they do might influence public policy, and more willing to express support for authoritarian alternatives. The crisis of democratic legitimacy extends across a much wider set of indicators than previously appreciated.”



- Russian General Staff Views Belarusian Territory as Its Own ‘Military District’
(Window on Eurasia)
"The Zapad 2017 exercises last summer demonstrated that “Russia will use the territory of Belarus as its own,” a reality that officials in NATO have long been seriously concerned. But if NATO is concerned, so too is Minsk; and its behavior during and after the exercises highlighted that reality."




_____________

Sunday 4. 
February
_____________


- IRL’s Caucus chair: Estonia should leave Ottawa Treaty
(ERR)
"MP Tarmo Kruusimäe, who was on Saturday reelected chairman of IRL's nationalist caucus, said in his speech that Estonia must reauthorize the use of land mines on its territory by leaving the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, otherwise known as Ottawa Treaty. He described Estonia's accesion to the convention in 2004 as absolutely unjustified."
--
"According to Kruusimäe, the use of anti-personnel mines prevents the rapid advance of infantry and motorized combat units, and in this, Estonia should follow Finland's example, in which the latter has adopted the use of land mines as a mainstay of its national defense. The MP also pointed out that neither the U.S. nor Russia has joined the Ottawa Treaty."
--
"Kruusimäe also called for increasing allied presence in Estonia.”


- EU: Poland, Baltics need plan for grid synchronization by June
(ERR)
"To help offset their energy dependence on Russia, the European Commission wants to desynchronize the electricity network of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from the Soviet-era BRELL electricity ring and link them with the rest of Europe via the Polish grid."





_____________

Russia
“Trust No One"
_____________


✔︎ Baker’s Double Dozen of Neglected Russian Stories – No. 117
by Paul Goble
“#18 - Two-Thirds of Russians Think Russia has Enemies; One-Quarter Think They’re Everywhere.”
—
In Russia’s neighborhood: #12 - "Estonia Boosts Defense Spending to More than 500 Million Euros.”
—
In Russia’s neighborhood: #13 - "Moscow Threatens Riga with ‘Serious Consequences’ for Equalizing Treatment of Soviet and German World War II veterans."



- Russia's media scene: not just a state affair
(Christian Science Monitor)
"Despite Western preconceptions of a Soviet-like puppet media, the Russian news landscape is quite diverse, with outlets public and private, big and small. But government influence remains a critical concern."



- Putin Stands Out On Official Ballot
(RFERL)
“His bio is by far the briefest of all the (8) candidates, appearing to set him apart, optically at least, from all the others."



✔︎ Russia’s Recurring States of Emergency
(Intersection)
"It is now almost commonplace to read reports of Russia’s authorities declaring a state of emergency somewhere within the Russian Federation. It is a tendency that bears some resemblence to a similar trend of governments resorting to declaring a state of emergency almost without hesitation, observed even in European democratic states …"



✔︎ Russia's Security Forces Prepare for a Power Grab
(Stratfor)
"Kremlin power brokers are already thinking beyond election day. Russian media and politicians expect that after securing his fourth term in office, Putin will exercise a freer hand to implement economic reforms, political reshuffles and updates to Kremlin social policies. And a recent report from the New Times, a Russian media outlet, claims that, after the election, the Russian government will also begin the process of restructuring its many rival security services. Security organizations form the backbone of the Kremlin and have long influenced Russia's overall stability. And while power struggles among these groups are nothing new, increasing unrest within Russia's borders gives these reforms even more significance."



- Putin’s Opposition Stabbed, Bludgeoned, Burned, Even Attacked With Poison Gas
(The Daily Beast)
"Why did it take a full week for Russian authorities to reveal the brutal murder, on Jan. 26, of 53-year-old St. Petersburg political activist Konstantin Sinitsyn?"



- Putin Repeating Seven Mistakes Soviet Leaders Made Before 1991
(Paul Goble)
"Regimes that made history into an ideology often suffer because the picture of the past they paint leads them to ignore inconvenient facts and thus fail to avoid repeating the errors of those who have gone before them."



- Listen To The Court Jester: Vladimir Zhirinovsky
(Brian Whitmore)
"It's important to pay attention to what Russia's court jester says during this election campaign as his words are often a signal of the Kremlin's true and unvarnished thinking going forward."



- ‘The President of the USSR is Alive and Ready to Return to Power, and it isn’t Gorbachev’
(Paul Goble)
"In any country as large and diverse and with such a complicated history as Russia, there are going to be some unusual people with unusual and perverse ideas.  Today, Lenta journalist Mikhail Karpov interviewed one of them, Sergey Taraskin, who styles himself “the acting president of the USSR” … What (Karpov) saw and heard left him first with a vision of the future straight out of Soviet fantasies but then with a sense that doctors from a psychiatric hospital should be called in.”



- Putinit ei huvita vähimalgi määral mingi venekeelne elanikkond mingis Baltikumis
(Postimees)
"Venemaa politoloog, Moskva Carnegie keskuse programmi «Venemaa sisepoliitika ja poliitilised institutsioonid» juht Andrei Kolesnikov rääkis venekeelsele Postimehele, mille poolest erineb Aleksei Navalnõi Boriss Jeltsinist, kas Ksenija Sobtšak on Kremli agent, millise sihiga seadsid kommunistid üles uue kandidaadi Pavel Grudinini ja mida tõotavad Venemaa valimised kaasa tuua Euroopa Liidule ja Balti riikidele."



✔︎ FSB, GRU, SVR Intelligence Agency Chiefs Traveled To Washington days before Trump decided against new sanctions on Russia 
(Various sources)
“I can’t recall any time in the last 15 years” that all three Russian agency chiefs were in the U.S. capital at the same time, Steven Hall, a former CIA station chief in Moscow, tells RFE/RL. “It’s highly unusual."
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- Russia’s elite FSB spy club
(BBC)
"In 2015 the FSB was involved in a Cold War-style spy swap with Estonia. A Nato member, Estonia accused Russia of having kidnapped Eston Kohver, the security official exchanged for a jailed Russian spy."



- ‘Trump is Again Ours,’ Russian Military Journal Says
by Paul Goble
(Window on Eurasia)
"Viktor Kamenev, a commentator for the influential Russian military journal, Voyennoye obozreniye, says that the visit to Washington by the three heads of Russia’s security services as well as a series of other events in Washington, Davos and Dubai prove that “Trump is again ours.”
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  "The simultaneous visit of the heads of the three Russian special services, the SVR, the FSB and the GRU, to Washington was “an unprecedented event.”
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“… Kamenev says Trump “somehow was able to take under control the special services” in part by his alliance with Republicans in Congress like Representative Devon Nunes whose report “in fact reveals a conspiracy of FBI agents and the Justice Department against President Trump.” That report may lead to “a massive purge of the FBI, other US special services, and the Justice Department as well as a political earthquake in Congress.”



- A pro-Russian spiral
(New Eastern Europe)
"The pro-Russian activity in Ukraine was on the rise years before the annexation of Crimea. Every new turn allowed a test of new mechanisms of separatism and new arguments to justify a violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. As a result, all the events which took the international community by surprise in 2014 were nothing new. They were being tested earlier."



- Who is Optimistic About the Future of Russia and Why?
(Intersection)
"If we ask an average Russian about the word that best describes the future of their country and their own prospects, ‘uncertainty’ will be among the most popular answers. Meanwhile, the famous notion of ‘stability’ is the main mantra of Russia’s current authorities. This term stands for stable minimum standards and a survival strategy rather than a sustainable development strategy. It is the kind of stability that is supposed to guarantee existence but without the element of improved quality of life in the future. Undoubtedly, the state supports such sentiments but many Russians look to the future with fear."



- Occupied Crimea Receiving One-Fifth of All Moscow Allocations to Russian Regions
by Paul Goble
(Window on Eurasia)
"Moscow’s occupation of Crimea is currently costing it approximately 2.3 billion US dollars a year, a figure that will only grow, according to a new analysis, and that means the occupied region is now receiving 20 percent of the funds Moscow is sending to all Russian regions."


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