Earlier this month I spent a few days in Estonia, travelling to Muhu, an island in the Baltic, to Tallinn, the capital, and to Tartu, in the south-east. The mood among Estonians, who have lived in Russia’s shadow for centuries, is much more Russophobe than in major European capitals. If Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, most Estonians believe, he will keep coming westwards.
ON THE ROAD FROM MUHU TO TALLINN - The temperature outside was dipping – around minus 10 and heading downwards. The icy plains of northern Estonia were glittering in the afternoon sun.
In the other direction lines of British Army vehicles, sent in as part of Nato’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, were on the move.
I asked Ott, sitting next to me, what the Estonians thought about the war in Ukraine.
We had just spent two days at his rustic but comfortable country cottage on the small island of Muhu, walking on frozen paths, sweating in his small sauna, and eating mushrooms he had collected in the forest near his home earlier in the year.
Muhu was, until the fall of Communism, the frontline of the Soviet empire. On its sister island, the larger Saaremaa, abandoned Cold War military installations can still be seen.
That war ended 30 years ago. But now a new one was being fought only a few hours to the east. Once again the Russians were pushing westwards.
Ott hesitated. Then he said: “Their boys are dying so our boys don’t have to.”
Throughout Europe the debate over the Ukrainian war and its consequences have played high on the list of political issues since the Russians sent their tanks and airborne troops into the country on Feb 24th.
Like a tide that ebbs and flows, sympathy for the Ukrainians, and especially the refugees that have fled westwards, started out strong, hit a high point sometime during the summer and has now started to wane as the cost-of-living and other domestic crises bite.
Most in the west have thrown their support behind Ukraine. Closet Putin fans grew suddenly quiet in the spring, and their voices disappeared from even those media that had championed them.
There was less talk of Ukrainian fascists, less whispers of ‘Putin has a point’, and even the hackneyed cliches around the imminent demise of democracy and irresistible rise of strongman regimes waned.
“Their boys are dying so our boys don’t have to.”
The star of Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, still appeared to be in the ascendant – though it may now have crested and begun to slowly fall - but Trump was gone and Bolsonaro, the Brazilian populist leader, was out.
Meanwhile Putin’s carapace of strength and infallibility had not just cracked but shattered.
By late summer, however, the winds of both politics and public perception in Europe were once again changing. Some of the old bromides were resurfacing.
‘It really was Nato that drove Putin to this’ was one that began to be heard again both on the right and the left. ‘We’re not hearing the whole story from the mainstream media,’ was another.
‘The most important thing is that everyone just stop fighting,’ was perhaps the most pernicious banality, as if that would miraculously return the eastern marches of Europe to some kind of status quo ante, where buildings would rise again, Russian troops would return to their barracks, and refugees could go back to their lives and peace would reign.
In Paris Emmanuelle Macron talked earnestly about not humiliating the Russian leader. In Berlin the new Chancellor Olaf Scholz was more absent than present when it came to pushing back against Russia.
But, here in the Baltics, a more steely realism never lost currency. Estonia’s prime minister Kaja Kallas responded to the notion that a cessation of hostilities might be best for all with barely concealed contempt.
“I’m very worried about premature calls for a ceasefire because peace doesn’t mean an end to [Russian] atrocities in occupied territory,” Kallas said. “Putin is not in a corner. He can very well go back to his own country.”
The Estonians after all, like their Baltic brethren the Lithuanians and Latvians, know exactly what Soviet aggression looked like.
Most were born into a country run by a distant, corrupt and imperialist empire out of Moscow with almost no regard for local sensitivities, customs or aspirations.
They had watched in dismay as Putin clawed back some of that lost empire - first taking control of parts of Georgia and later Crimea and a slice of eastern Ukraine - with barely a whiff of protest from Nato or the West.
And it was not as if Moscow made a secret of its expansion into parts of the old Soviet Union.
When I crossed the border from Georgia proper into the separatist republic of Abkhazia in 2017 while on assignment the first official I met on the other side was from Putin’s FSB.
“It’s very interesting,” he said to me when he had scanned my passport. “Three weeks ago in Moscow you said you were Canadian and now you claim to be British.”
I apologised for having multiple passports. “Globalisatsiya,” I said by way of explanation. He smiled and let me pass.
In Estonia there has always been an awareness that the fruits of the country’s liberation – a strong economy, glitzy shopping malls, and a higher living standard than some of the old democracies in the west – rest on keeping Russian imperialism in check.
Here there was no talk of finding middle ground and no illusion that a compromise would end Putin’s appetite for expansion.
Today’s Estonia might look a little like Sweden with its neat wood piles, IKEA furnishings and brightly patterned scarfs and hats.
But as I walked around Muhu with Ott we came across an old memorial hidden behind bushes. It was dedicated to Estonians from this small island who had died fighting in World War 2. Unusually these men had been allies of the Soviet communists.
It was a reminder, if one were needed, that in this part of the world, the bloodlands between Germany and Russia, stability, prosperity and the right to control your own lives are not givens, but rest on the whim of your more powerful, belligerent and martial neighbours.
I asked Ott if he thought that pushing Putin into a corner was dangerous. “Maybe,” he said. “But if we allow him to win, we are all in trouble.”
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NEWS & UPCOMING
+ I will soon resume telling the story of my trip to Chechnya dressed in a borrowed Russian Spetsnaz uniform. It speaks volumes about the way the Russian military works. If you missed the first part of the story you can read it here.
+ If you would like to read a New York Times report about the failures of the Russian military in Ukraine click here. (This may be behind a paywall for some of you.)
+ I have now finished teaching university students in Hungary for this semester and will be splitting my time between Budapest and London for the next several weeks. The next semester begins in mid February. In April I will return to Canada to run Wild Bear Lodge for the season.
+ My close friend Anthony Loyd has just published a remarkable 20-minute film about a British man evacuating civilians from eastern Ukraine. To watch it click here.
I so enjoy hearing from you, Julius. Your writing is a joy to read, but enough praise for your writing skills, though thoroughly merited. Citing the concerns of those so close to Russia is a cogent warning to anyone who doesn't see the perilous state of the world in which we now live. The softening in the rhetoric of the more distant West, France and Germany as you refer to, should be of great concern to anyone who has read your observations from Estonia and to everyone who knows the history of European Fascism which threatened Democracy and freedom in the last century. Here in the United States we are faced with divisiveness not seen since pre-second world war "Nazi favoritism" that was quelled only after Pearl Harbor and the speech Winston Churchill so elegantly delivered in December, 1941 to our Congress. But don't believe that our entire nation is behind support to Zelensky and the Ukraine. Just as happened in 1941, when Zelensky delivered his warning to our Congress this week there were empty seats and some Republicans refused to stand while the majority gave him a well deserved standing ovation. Yes, most Americans are committed to the Ukrainian cause, but more of us need to hear what you are writing so we not go the way of those who believe the specious rhetoric that peace with Putin will make us all safer. Your voice is important. Keep writing and spread the word. Many of us are listening and hopefully even more will listen soon!
Most often my partner and I agree to disagree on politics.. Yet, yesterday we watched in joint awe and admiration as Zelenskyy made his passionate plea to our congress for more support. As divided as we are on many issues most Americans are committed to the Ukranian cause and understand what is at stake.
Give them the tools they need.