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Recycling posters featuring the picture of US President Barack Obama have reportedly been spotted on garbage cans at the Estonian capital's airport. Obama's photograph is encircled with the three arrows that symbolize recycling and encourages consumers with his campaign slogan "Yes, We Can," Russia Today (RT) reported citing a report at delfi.ee. Eesti Pakendiringlus, an Estonian recycled packaging company, is stressing on the “can” with a pun on the word's other meaning tin.

Baltic economies - a painful downfall after years of prosperity In the first six months of 2009, the Baltic states' GDP shrank by nearly 20%, which was the worst result in Europe. As a consequence of job cuts in private enterprises and the public sector, the unemployment level has tripled in comparison with the preceding year to exceed 15% in all three countries. It is still unclear from the economic data for the past few months whether recession in the Baltic states will continue to worsen. However, it seems that the economic indices will not fall so rapidly in the...

Energy: While members of Congress take vacations their constituents can no longer afford, a country prepares to end its dependence on foreign oil by extracting supplies from shale rock. It's not the U.S. It's in the Middle East.Jordan imports 95% of its oil. Unlike the U.S., the desert kingdom plans on doing something about it. It does not, however, plan to cover its flat open spaces with solar panels or wind farms. It's going to do something the Democratic Congress has refused to do — get oil from its abundant shale rock. On Sunday, Maher Hjazin, head of the Jordanian...

An Open Letter to the Obama Administration from Central and Eastern Europe 2009-07-15 by Valdas Adamkus, Martin Butora, Emil Constantinescu, Pavol Demes, Lubos Dobrovsky, Matyas Eorsi, Istvan Gyarmati, Vaclav Havel, Rastislav Kacer, Sandra Kalniete, Karel Schwarzenberg, Michal Kovac, Ivan Krastev, Alexander Kwasniewski, Mart Laar, Kadri Liik, Janos Martonyi. Janusz Onyszkiewicz, Adam Rotfeld, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Alexandr Vondra, Lech Walesa. We have written this letter because, as Central and Eastern European (CEE) intellectuals and former policymakers, we care deeply about the future of the transatlantic relationship as well as the future quality of relations between the United States and the countries of...

HELSINKI (AFP) — Finland put an end to Estonia's 11-year reign and took gold and bronze on Saturday at the annual Wife-Carrying World Championships held in Sonkajaervi, central Finland, organisers said. Taisto Miettinen raced through a 250-metre (273-yard) course with two hurdles and a pool in 62 seconds, carrying Kristiina Haapanen on his back. The winners beat Estonia's Alar Voogla and Kristi Viltrop by 0.1 seconds. Miettinen has been attending the competition for a decade now and said he was pleased to finally win. "A couple of times I have lost by 0.1 seconds and I have stumbled. Our win...

Since Estonia regained independence, the birth rate of Estonians has been negative, but in 2008, nearly 600 Estonians more were born than died, writes EPL Online/LETA. The birth rate of the entire population of Estonia remained negative, however – in 2008, Estonia lost 647 residents. In the year 1992 – the first year after regaining of independence – Estonians' birth rate was minus 755, a year later the birth rate among Estonians had fallen to minus 2,731. The year 1994 was the worst one in terms of birth rate since regaining of independence – 4,323 persons more died than were...

Nato and Russia traded accusations yesterday after the alliance accused Moscow of breaking the peace agreement that ended the war with Georgia, a day after it expelled two Russian diplomats in a spying row. At a ceremony in the Kremlin yesterday Russia assumed formal control of the borders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in agreements signed by President Medvedev with the leaders of Georgia’s two breakaway regions. The signing elicited a sharp response from Nato, which said that the treaties were in “clear contravention” of the ceasefire brokered by President Sarkozy of France to end the war between Russia and...

Riga - The economic gloom afflicting the Baltic states got several shades darker Tuesday with a fresh forecasts revising expectations downwards. Until mid-2007 the so-called 'Baltic Tigers' of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia recorded Europe's fastest growth rates, but their economies have stalled spectacularly in the wake of the global downturn. According to a spring forecast from the Estonian Ministry of Finance, the economy in the smallest of the Baltic states will contract by 8.5 percent in 2009. "Estonia is undoubtedly at a difficult time. At the same time this gives us a real opportunity to use the downturn to create...

An Estonian Army Soldier holds his Order of the Spur certificate, a traditional U.S. Army cavalry award, during a farewell ceremony at Camp Taji, northwest of Baghdad, Dec. 12. The Estonian Soldiers completed their six-month tour in Iraq, during which they served as a vital force in eroding the capabilities of enemy forces in the area by exploiting weapons caches. Due to the increased security and stability in Iraq, the Republic of Estonia has transitioned its forces from Coalition operations to the NATO training mission in Iraq. Photo by Spc. Christopher Long. BAGHDAD — Due to the increased security and...

The Georgia Watershed By Leon Aron Posted: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 RUSSIAN OUTLOOK AEI Online   Publication Date: November 12, 2008 Fall 2008On August 8, following Georgia's reckless attack on the Russia-supported separatist enclave of South Ossetia, Russia invaded Georgia. For the first time in post-Soviet history, Russian troops crossed the internationally recognized border of a sovereign neighboring state. Yet there were several other lines that may have been crossed. This short war looks more and more like a culmination and an emblem of the troubling evolution in the Kremlin's values and priorities and, by extension, its vision of the...

ECHOES OF the Cold War have returned to Nato headquarters in Brussels after an Estonian general was unmasked as a “sleeper� spy who passed top secret alliance information to Moscow. Herman Simm (61), a retired official in Estonia’s defence ministry, has been arrested along with his wife on suspicion that they were recruited by KGB officers before the collapse of the Soviet Union. After Estonia’s independence in 1991, state prosecutors believe Mr Simm made contact with the KGB’s successor foreign intelligence agency, the SVR. The former police chief was the perfectly placed mole: between 1995 and 2006 he helped set...

A spy at the heart of Nato may have passed secrets on the US missile shield and cyber-defence to Russian Intelligence, it has emerged. Herman Simm, 61, an Estonian defence ministry official who was arrested in September, was responsible for handling all of his country's classified information at Nato, giving him access to every top-secret graded document from other alliance countries. He was recruited by the Russians in the late 1980s and has been charged in Estonia with supplying information to a foreign power. Several investigation teams from both the EU and Nato, under the supervision of a US officer,...

The upcoming meeting between President-elect Barack Obama and his onetime rival Sen. John McCain was set in motion during a phone call over the weekend between Obama and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), McCain's closest friend. In an interview Friday, Graham said that Obama requested the meeting during a 20-minute phone call that the South Carolina senator described as a "pleasant" discussion about how they could work together effectively. "We just talked about the desire to find something meaningful to work on," Graham said. "He was very nice to me, said that he considered me a serious, reform-minded senator that he...

Nato's top military commander has demanded the authority to draw up detailed military plans to defend former Soviet bloc members for the first time since the alliance expanded eastward. Russia's offensive in Georgia in August exposed the dangers of the Western alliance's lack of contingency plans against an invasion on its eastern flanks. Political leaders from the Baltics and Eastern Europe have subsequently demanded that Nato fulfil the requirements implied by its "Chapter 5" commitment to defend the territorial integrity of all its members. General James Craddock, Nato's Supreme Commander, has asked for the political authority to draw up contingency...

ST. PETERSBURG, September 3 (RIA Novosti) - Two farms in north-east Estonia have joined forces to declare an independent "Soviet republic" and intend to seek Russia's recognition, a Russian communist organization said on Wednesday. "We no longer want to live in bourgeois Estonia, where nobody cares about the common people...with raging unemployment and corruption, and where everything depends on NATO and the Americans," Russian communists from St Petersburg, who are assisting the 'republic,' quoted its founder, Andres Tamm, as saying. Residents and founders of the 'Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic' have already formed a national 'Soviet government,' a police force, and...

Estonia has already sent around 50 army reservists to Georgia (though on a voluntary, non-uniformed basis) to conduct humanitarian work and now it has emerged that Estonia is also lending its cyber-warfare expertise to the Georgian cause. The Estonian Foreign Ministry has confirmed that it is sending two of its leading cyber-defense experts to Tbilisi to help stave off cyber-attacks emanating in Russia. Estonia successfully defended itself against similar attacks during the 'bronze soldier' riots of 2007. The experts are likely to be part of the new NATO cyber-defense center established in Tallinn, and if so, the move would be...

TBILISI, Georgia (CNN) -- The leaders of a former Eastern Bloc nation and four former Soviet republics showed support for Georgia in its conflict with Russia at a massive rally in Georgia's capital Tuesday night. The presidents' appearances came shortly before France's leader announced that Georgia had accepted a Russian-French plan to end the conflict. Thousands cheered as the presidents of Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia stood with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili at a rally in Tbilisi, Georgia, late Tuesday.

Estonia's experience may be of interest in assessing how best Georgia and Moldova should shape their policies vis-à-vis Russia. When Estonia gained independence in 1991 following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Moscow was understandably angry. It sought to create a picture in the western media of a land with huge economic problems, unsuitable for investment. Estonia was indeed poor, and its main exports were scrap metal and timber, but its economy was growing. Russia supported a so-called "autonomy-movement" in north-east Estonia, which is populated mostly by people who settled there during Soviet times. When Estonia stood firm against this,...

WARSAW (AFP)--The presidents of five ex-communist countries will travel to Georgia to back Georgia in its war with Russia, a senior aide to Poland's President Lech Kaczynski told AFP Monday.

Russia's neighbours put on edge by war threat (AFP) 10 August 2008 WARSAW - The conflict between Georgia and Russia has stunned eastern European nations who can still feel the scars of their domination by the former Soviet Union. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland called on the European Union and NATO to oppose Russia's "imperialist" policy towards Georgia. And even countries such as Sweden, which was not part of the Soviet bloc, expressed extreme concern at the conflict, making comparisons to Adolf Hitler's tactics as leader of Nazi Germany. Russia has in turn been vocal in criticising neighbours such as...

BRUSSELS -- Can communism be compared to Nazism? Does communism's record deserve as unequivocal a condemnation as that of Nazism? And should communism's modern-day adherents and apologists be rejected as firmly by Europe's political mainstream as those of Nazism? The debate over the historical record of communism simmers on in the European Union. Forced onto the bloc's agenda by its new ex-communist member states, the issue was most recently broached at a European Parliament debate in Strasbourg on April 21. Reflecting deep-seated divisions among member states and political camps, the parliament ultimately failed to agree on a common declaration. Some...

The German government's purchase of data stolen from a Liechtenstein bank has reinvigorated longstanding debates about privacy, law enforcement and international relations. Much of the fallout has followed predictable patterns. Some argue that Germany's richest citizens should be brought to justice for failing to comply with the tax laws, while others point out that it is unseemly for a nation to spy on a peaceful neighbor. The conflict between Germany and Liechtenstein also has triggered a broader debate about tax competition and the role of so-called tax havens. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is trying to use...

Mart Laar, two-time Prime Minister of Estonia, has been credited with lifting the small Baltic nation out of economic and social collapse under communism to becoming a prosperous, free society. Currently a member of the Estonian Parliament, Laar first became Prime Minister of Estonia at age 32. During his tenure from 1992-1994, he initiated sweeping economic reforms that included unilateral free trade, privatization, and the introduction of the world's first flat tax. Laar was re-elected in 1999 and served until 2002. Known as the Baltic Tiger, in the past two decades Estonia has experienced unprecedented economic growth and has dramatically...

TALLINN - Estonian and Russian border guards shut down a pipeline through which criminals attempted to pump alcohol from north-eastern Russia into north-western Estonia over the River Narva. A spokesman for the Estonian Border Guard Board told the Baltic News Service (BNS) that the hose from Ivangorod, Russia, to Narva, a mostly Russian enclave in Estonia, was discovered this week after a tip-off and Estonian border guards severed the hose passing over the 300-metre-wide river. On the Russian side of the river, customs officials caught a local man red-handed with an 800-litre drum of alcohol and a hose in the...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday the European Union was ignoring moves by the bloc's members Estonia and Latvia to glorify Nazism. Putin, speaking in the Kremlin to members of the European Jewish Congress, said he was shocked by an annual Waffen SS parade which took place in Latvia last March. "Some facts which we come up against in several countries of Eastern Europe have provoked open astonishment and incomprehension," Putin said on national television. "The activities of the Latvian and Estonian authorities openly connive at the glorification of Nazis and their accomplices. But these facts...

10 October 2007, 12:39 Russian clerics leave meeting on Orthodox-Catholic dialogue over rifts Moscow, October 10, Interfax - A delegation of the Moscow Patriarchate on Tuesday left a meeting of the Mixed Commission for Orthodox-Catholic Theologian Dialogue, which opened in Ravenna, Italy. "Following their arrival in Ravenna the Orthodox delegation learned that representatives of the so-called Estonian Apostolic Church, formed in 1996 by the Constantinople Patriarchate on the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate, had been entered on the list of delegates," bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria, the Russian Church's envoy in Europe and a member of the Mixed...

TALLINN - Doudou Diene, the United Nations special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, has recommended that Estonia move toward a multilingual society with more than one official language. Diene, who is drawing up a report on the Baltic states due to be delivered next year, told reporters Sep. 28 that Estonia should move toward a multicultural and multilingual society. "The requirement to be able to speak Estonian is normal," said the Senegalese, adding that all Estonian citizens had to be able to speak the language. At the same time, the special rapporteur added...

TALLINN/VILNIUS - Estonia's ruling Reform Party is preparing an amendment to allow people to vote by mobile telephone. The party presented its ‘m-voting’ proposals Sep. 27 in order to prepare a bill along with its other coalition partners next week. If the partners give the initiative the thumbs up the legislation will be sent to parliament. The head of the Reformist faction, Keit Pentus, said Estonia has always been at the forefront of information technology innovation. In her words, the use of an ID card linked to a cell phone is no longer fantasy, and m-voting would make involvement in...

TALLINN/VILNIUS - Estonia's ruling Reform Party is preparing an amendment to allow people to vote by mobile telephone. The party presented its ‘m-voting’ proposals Sep. 27 in order to prepare a bill along with its other coalition partners next week. If the partners give the initiative the thumbs up the legislation will be sent to parliament. The head of the Reformist faction, Keit Pentus, said Estonia has always been at the forefront of information technology innovation. In her words, the use of an ID card linked to a cell phone is no longer fantasy, and m-voting would make involvement in...

ESTONIA WILL NOT ALLOW THE NORD STREAM PIPELINE ON ITS SEABED By Vladimir Socor Thursday, September 27, 2007 Estonia's government has turned down the Russo-German company Nord Stream's request to survey the seabed off the Estonian coast. The survey was to precede the construction of the Russian gas pipeline on the Baltic seabed to Germany for Gazprom. The Estonian coalition government took the decision unanimously on September 21. It has met with general understanding in the European Union and in German editorial pages since then, contrary to previous attempts by interested German circles to portray this Gazprom-led project as a...

Fiscal Policy: In a free-market revolution sweeping central and eastern Europe, Albania and Bulgaria will become the latest ex-communist states to embrace a low-rate flat tax. To have lived under socialism is to appreciate capitalism. In America, cutting tax rates is an ideological issue. In the former Soviet satellites of Europe, it is increasingly not an issue at all — so obvious is it that it gives people better lives. It began with Estonia in 1994, when Mart Laar as prime minister, thinking he was just emulating the capitalist West, made it the world's first nation in modern times to...

September 22 marks the Day of Resistance in Estonia. The holiday was re-named this year after decades when it was known as The Day of the Struggle Against Fascism. The different interpretations between ethnic Russians and Estonians in the country are causing tensions. The Soviet army entered Tallinn on September 22, 1944, and this day has gone down in history two very different ways. For Russians it is known as the day the city was freed from fascism. For Estonians it is the day when almost 50 years of Soviet occupation began. The date was officially re-named this year and...

Twisted Tongues by Joel Alas 12 September 2007 Debates about whether the country’s Russian population should be forced to learn Estonian are raising questions about long-standing citizenship requirements and multiculturalism. TALLINN, Estonia | It’s a warm September day in central Tallinn, but the heat inside the hotel conference room has nothing to do with the baking sunlight. Fiery exchanges fly from the delegates to the conference moderator, a young woman who struggles to maintain composure as she bears the brunt of their anger. The topic for discussion is integration between Estonian- and Russian-speaking communities, an issue the nation has struggled...

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Estonia decided Thursday it will not allow a German-Russian consortium to conduct a survey of its exclusive economic zone in the Baltic Sea for a planned underwater gas pipeline. The survey was necessary for a possible rerouting of the 750-mile pipeline that will deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. "Each coastal country has full sovereignty and a right to make decision involving its own waters," Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said in a news conference. "Furthermore, we think the Baltic Sea is not a proper place for such a pipeline." Estonia's refusal...

Riga - An outspoken critic of the Baltic States will visit the three small nations this week. Rene van der Linden, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, will visit EU members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for talks about human rights, democracy, and national minorities. Linden criticized Latvia and Estonia for their minority policies, including Estonia's decision to relocate the Soviet-era monument last spring. 'I have repeatedly criticized the Baltic states for their attitude toward the Russian national minorities,' he said on his visit to Moscow in August. He said during his visit to the Baltics this...

September 6, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The Economic Freedom Network, a global association of research and educational institutes, has just issued its annual report, which rates only one former communist country among the world's top nations with policies that support economic freedom. That country is Estonia. The report has high praise for Estonia, whose economy grew by over 11 percent in 2006. It notes that Estonia performed better not only in comparison with its Baltic neighbors, Latvia and Lithuania, but also placed ahead of countries like France and Germany -- not to mention Belgium, Ukraine, or Russia, which are near the...

Tartu, Estonia - Estonian police stopped a man for driving erratically Saturday, only to learn the man was blind. It turned out that it was the 20-year-old man's second offence when he was caught driving near the southern city of Tartu early Saturday morning. He was drunk and being guided by his three passengers, Marge Kohtla, a spokeswoman for Estonian police told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa. The same young man was stopped behind the wheel a week earlier when a passenger without driver's license was guiding him. The man faces arrest for up to 30 days. The police intends to...

Prague (dpa) - Daniel Novy, a spokesman for the Czech embassy in Washington, did not celebrate when US President George W Bush signed into law a bill that introduces new rules for visa-free travel to the United States. "It is the way it is," Novy tells Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa matter-of-factly. "It is neither a complete victory nor a complete defeat." That is the gist of what the Czech Republic and five other former communist nations - Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia - said in a recent statement. They billed the new US visa rules a step in the right...

In the post-Soviet era, several former communist countries have enacted pro-capitalist, free market policies that are fueling tremendous economic growth and freedom. This week, Estonia's former prime minister explained the economic miracle that is his country - a country of 17,400 square miles and 1.4 million people with an economy that outshines many of its larger European neighbors. Mart Laar became Estonia's prime minister in 1992. His country was then in shambles, having been ruled by the Soviet Union for 51 years. Shops stood abandoned, housing and highways were crumbling, infrastructure was crippled. It was, in some ways, reminiscent of...

Estonia's commemoration of its pro-German World War II past, including the re-enactment of a Nazi victory, has outraged European officials and the Russian Jewish community. Published: 08/06/2007 MOSCOW (JTA) -- Estonia's commemoration of its pro-German World War II past, including the re-enactment of a Nazi victory, has outraged European officials and the Russian Jewish community. A week ago, veterans of the Waffen SS 20th Estonian Division celebrated the anniversary of the first clashes between Estonian pro-German troops and the Soviet Army in 1941. And on Monday, young Estonian ultra-rightists began a week of commemoration by re-enacting the 1941 Erna Campaign,...

The Estonian government announced July 12 that it will challenge the European Commission over the 2008-2013 carbon dioxide quotas that the organization established for the Baltic states. The European Union's target is to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020 across the union in conjunction with the international Kyoto agreement's target of decreasing emissions from 1990 levels by 8 percent by 2012. The carbon emissions cap is also meant to push the European Union toward more environmentally friendly energy sources and decrease its energy dependence on Russia. However, several European countries believe the carbon caps will increase their dependence...

TALLINN, Estonia - Estonia on Tuesday reburied the remains of eight Soviet soldiers whose exhumation from a war grave had sparked deadly riots and infuriated neighboring Russia. The eight white caskets were lowered into new ground at the Defense Forces cemetery in a ceremony attended by Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo, foreign diplomats and World War II veterans. "We have fulfilled our duty and given these soldiers their final resting place," Aaviksoo said after the hour-long ceremony. He said he hoped the reburial would prevent Russia from using the war grave issue in the future "for provocations against the Republic of...

TALLINN, Estonian: Two Estonian soldiers were killed Saturday in a NATO-led mission in southern Afghanistan, the Estonian military said in a statement. The soldiers — identified as 24-year-old Sgt. Kalle Torn and 33-year-old Jnr. Sgt. Jako Karuks — were killed in a morning missile attack while taking part in a mine clearance mission in the Helmand Province.

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) - A Russian jet violated Estonia's airspace twice during one flight, military officials in the Baltic state said Tuesday. The Tu-154 jet, en route to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, first crossed into Estonian airspace in the vicinity of the island of Naissaar, some 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the capital Tallinn late Monday, military officials said in a statement. The violation lasted four minutes, they added. The same plane re-entered the Baltic nation's air space a little later _ this time for about one minute _ near the western island of Osmussaar, the military said....

What is a fair voting system for the European Union? It looks as though, thanks to Poland, European leaders will be forced to debate this difficult question at their summit this week. Since the simplified draft treaty is substantively identical to the old and rejected constitution - minus some cosmetics - the voting system proposed is going to be the same one: passage of legislation requires a coalition of countries representing at least 55 per cent of the member states and 65 per cent of the population. The Poles have threatened a veto unless the second of those two numbers...

The Estonian Minister of Defense Jaak Aaviksoo addresses the Estonian platoon (ESTPLA) on Camp Taji, Iraq June 8 during a visit by the minister to the base camp. Estonian soldiers in the ESTPLA are teamed with Soldiers from Troop B, 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment and have gone on 148 patrols in Sab Al Bor, Iraq with their U.S. partners. Photo by Staff Sgt. Jon Cupp. CAMP TAJI — For more than six months, an Estonian platoon known as the “Stone Platoon,� has been working with troops from the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division conducting combat operations together...

Dateline 06 June 2007 Imagine you live in a small country of 1.3 million people – the same as Maine or New Hampshire. Imagine that next door (to the east) is a country 100 times larger. Further south and west, another country some 60 times your size. Almost 300 years ago, your country was conquered by your eastern neighbor, though it had previously been under the control of a maritime country lying to your west. There followed over 200 years of occupation. Between the end of the first world war and the beginning of the second your country was independent....

PRAGUE, June 5, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves spoke today with RFE/RL correspondents Jeffrey Donovan and Irena Chalupa about his country's vulnerability after weeks of cyberattacks and Estonia's relations with Russia. RFE/RL: Your country has had a lot of attention recently, given this story about moving the Soviet monument and then the cyberattacks on Estonian computer systems. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Toomas Hendrik Ilves: I don't know where to begin. Certainly, we saw the use of massive cyberattacks against state institutions, as well as private sites, including banks. Initially, you could...

Estonian authorities annulled a visa for a Russian woman who protested against the recent dismantling of a Soviet-era memorial in the Estonian capital, and are considering deportation of another two protesters. Alexandra Bondarenko, apprehended earlier Monday, has already had her visa annulled, and is to be deported shortly. The other two detainees, identified only by their first names - Alexandra and Nadezhda - could also face expulsion. All the three detainees are 21 years old, and entered Estonia on tourist visas. The young women affiliated with the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi were detained in central Tallinn at the former site...

Kazakhstan and Belarus topped the list of the countries perceived to be the friendliest to Russia while Estonia was named the iciest country by an overwhelming number of Russian respondents, a recent poll held by the Levada agency in mid May revealed. The poll, which sampled 1,600 Russian citizens in 128 towns in 48 regions of Russia, showed that 39 percent of the respondents consider Kazakhstan to be the country friendliest to Russia. The number of positive answers slightly increased compared to 33 percent last year. Belarus took second place with 38 percent of those interviewed naming it an amicable...