Hi from Estonia 🇪🇪

I want to say a few words about this “Narva People’s Republic” case

There is no real threat to Estonia, no reason to panic, and no reason to uncritically spread “Narva is next” narratives

But it is ok and necessary to publish and analyze these cases

1/6

https://twitter.com/Oksii33/status/2033592483930616228

Read the @propastop blog post on this, it is very good, and also mentions countering views

“Every idea will reach the public sooner or later, one way or another. Silence would leave Estonia’s people in a situation where they hear about such narratives by chance, …”

2/6

🇪🇪 Estonia's Foreign Intelligence Service knows its stuff and russia well

They have published their 2026 yearbook. Always an interesting read

Here are the top findings: 1. The Kremlin merely feigns interest in peace talks, hoping to restore its bilateral relations with the United States to their previous level and formalise Ukraine's defeat. Despite this illusory thaw, Russia continues to regard the U.S. as its principal adversary.

One thing Trump truly does not understand, is that a whole generation of Ukrainians have grown up, defending their country’s freedom since 2014. Zelenskyy is nothing more than just the servant of those people, unlike Trump, who only serves himself.

1/12 These Ukrainians know well what freedom means, and how it is worth fighting and dying for. Me and tens of millions of others whose people and families have similarly suffered from russian crimes, are wholeheartedly on their side.

2/12

INTERCEPTED

I’d like to share with you the 2024 documentary “Intercepted” by 🇺🇦 filmmaker Oksana Karpovych. It combines peaceful visual scenes of war-torn Ukraine with the audio of phone calls that russian soldiers had with people back in russia.

1/8 russian phone calls intercepted by Ukraine’s security service SBU became a curious artifact of russia’s full-scale invasion, and recordings of them appeared quite early in 2022. “Intercepted” uses a selection of these recordings.

Here’s the trailer.

2/8

Interesting fresh opinion poll from 🇪🇪🇱🇻🇱🇹 published this morning, about 🇺🇸 elections and support for 🇺🇦

First question: how people in the three countries would vote in the 🇺🇸 election if we could participate This and next question are about 🇪🇪 only

This is same question as above, but categorized across ethnic background of people living in 🇪🇪

Ahead of the upcoming NATO summit, Politico “obtained” a letter by a number of “experts” who argue that Ukraine should not become a member of NATO. (See thread for references.)

This letter is an act of russian information war on the West. It is the informational equivalent of an artillery barrage, and the West is unable to respond with counter-battery fire in the information space. russia thus keeps spreading its poison unhindered via letters like this, and via its poison distribution network of people planted in organizations like think tanks, institutes, and universities.

The letter provides an interesting case study of how russian propaganda-industrial complex works. It has a large number of signatories who form a propaganda distribution network. If you follow the trails, you see that many of them often quote and amplify each other.

I will not discuss the contents of the letter. There are many rebuttals and competing good takes about Ukraine and NATO available on this site. I’ll just say that russia openly publishes its biggest fears with such letters. russia is not complex. You can read it like an open book. Having (part of) Ukraine in NATO immediately would be an effective and cheap way to end russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to which russia would have no good response. To counter this, russia mobilized its poison distribution network and wants to prevent this from happening. Building upon the poison that russia has managed to plant in Western decision maker brains in the past, the poison is working so far, and there is no serious discussion of admitting Ukraine to NATO any time soon.

Are all the signatories agents of russia? I don’t know. Some of them appear to have signed it in good faith, and state in their follow-up posts their personal view that Ukraine could actually be in NATO in the future. Some signatories are known bad-faith vatniks and a lost cause. By signing this letter, they have all signed up to carry russia’s water and spread its poison, knowingly or unknowingly. THE MISSION

Here’s my mission to you, should you choose to accept it. Well, two missions.

First, engage with these people. Let them know that distributing russian poison in 2024 does not go unnoticed. I won’t tell you what form to use for engagement. Maybe some of them seek dialogue and can be reasoned with. Others are a lost cause, and it’s OK to shitpost. Do your own research and decide for yourself. I did some shitposts and already got a few blocks 😀

Second, please continue to study the russian propaganda-industrial complex. How does russian poison distribution work? How do the narratives travel from Kremlin to the US? What are the links between Kremlin, Valdai Club, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and all the other nodes in the network? I find this letter interesting because it has an important part of this network all in one place.

Today, 🇪🇪 Internal Security Service shared their regular public annual review from the past year.

These men and women do their covert work to keep 🇪🇪 safe and free. I think they are doing a great job. They have busted many russian spies over the years (some also in their own ranks). Remember a university professor arrested earlier this year for suspicion of action against 🇪🇪? Yep that was them.

These annual reviews are always fascinating reading. Do take a look if you are into this. Links are in the thread.

Here is my selection of some highlights.

- Estonian border areas close to russia are a risk. Many people are not well off there, and are susceptible to russian influence activity.

- Crossing border to russia is not advisable. russia harasses people who cross the border, right at the border control points. Interrogations, device searches, strip searches, lie detector tests, beatings. Mainly this is done to Ukrainians but some of these things also to Estonians and others.

- russia pushed some migrants towards Estonia and uniformed russian border guards filmed this and it was later used in russian propaganda.

- Some russian TV channels are banned in Estonia but some people still offer access to them illegally via satellite dishes or Internet.

- russia hires local thugs for its hybrid operations. These people are poor and have life trouble, they don’t care about the russian ideology, they just want to get paid. They broke the car windows of Estonian interior minister and a media editor. More such crimes were planned but ISS prevented them. russian activity is becoming more open and brutal.

- There were a bunch of russian prank calls to Western government leaders, including Kaja Kallas. russians hoped to get material for their propaganda or get some secrets. They got someone to pose as some African leader. They didn’t get anything valuable from the call with Kaja Kallas. Other such calls were prevented because Western politicians and governments shared this info. ISS advises all officials to do due diligence and not be fooled.

- The head of russian church in Estonia was expelled, as he openly supported russian imperialism and aggression.

- Besides russia, China is also a threat. At the end of 2023, an Estonian citizen went to jail for eight years for intelligence activity against Estonia for China. China takes interest in small countries because they have similar access to EU and NATO secrets as everyone else.

- Access to state secrets was limited in some cases because people had problems with loans or drug abuse.

- There were cyberattacks against utility providers. The main problem is systems without patches and security updates.

- russian citizens, especially those who have come from russia recently, working in IT and having access to critical systems is a clear risk.

- ISS participates in gathering evidence about russian war crimes in Ukraine for future investigations and prosecutions. @ErkoLaidinen1 filmed a russian war crime by chance, when russians shot a rocket at a vehicle and killed volunteer medical workers. These annual reviews always have a section about history too. This year it is the 75th anniversary of Soviet russian mass deportations in the Baltic States and other countries, including Moldova.

ISS presents evidence how some staff from Estonia did their job “well” and was transferred to Moldova for the same task a few months later, and they even took the document templates with them. There are several pages of chilling instructions on how to perform the mass crime most effectively.

THE HAVANA SYNDROME

I watched the 60 Minutes videos about Havana Syndrome and read the fresh Insider story that were all published this weekend. Links to these are below if you’d like to study them yourself.

If you haven‘t paid attention to Havana Syndrome, here is the entire story in two sentences:

For many years, russia has been targeting US government workers (e.g specific intelligence officials working on cases related to russia) with directed energy weapon attacks that are nonlethal, function without direct contact, and leave the targets with severe health problems. US government is twisting itself into a pretzel to avoid saying that russia is behind these attacks, because it is too afraid of the consequences of saying this.

That’s it. That’s the gist of the entire story.

60 Minutes has been working on this material for many years. The first interviews were published in 2019 and 2022. The latest iteration of the investigation that was done jointly by 60 Minutes, The Insider and Der Spiegel, took a year.

I state my summary as a matter of fact, even though the US has never officially admitted that it attributes the attacks to russia. I state this because I find the publicly presented evidence compelling. This is backed up by Greg Edgreen who was the military investigator on the matter and has had access to classified material on the case. You can see his summary in the first video below. When russia is involved, it often makes no sense to play 4D chess and overthink. Things really are as simple as they seem.

Given this, it really seems that the US security and defense policy these days is to “Do whatever it takes to…”

To do what? What do you think?

To defend America, Americans, and the Constitution?

To promote freedom and protect democracy?

No. “Do whatever it takes to not upset and provoke russia.”

That really seems to be the policy these days. Whenever russia is involved, the superpower of US somehow instantly turns into chicken sh*t.

In Ukraine, we see that the US puts russian interests above its friends and allies. That’s no news to anyone. The heartbreaking part I found in this story is that the US puts the interests of russia above its own employees as well. You see interviews with highly trained and dedicated American men and women who have served their country in various capacities, such as top-tier intelligence officers working on matters related to russia, whom russia has attacked with directed energy weapons, and who are forced to retire because of the health problems that these attacks caused. Often, entire families, including children, are attacked and affected. You see genuine concern as these people speak about themselves, their families, and their colleagues who might still be put in harm’s way with similar attacks in the future. They feel that the US government is not doing enough to protect its staff, is sweeping all this under the rug and is twisting itself into a pretzel to avoid saying that russia is behind these attacks, even though there is overwhelming publicly available evidence that points to exactly that.

The Insider story ends with this:

“Removing this many capable American spies and diplomats from active service without killing them and without your main adversary even admitting they’ve done so — such a sustained, decade-long campaign would easily count as one of Vladimir Putin’s greatest strategic victories against the United States.”

This is a double victory for putin and russia. Beyond just removing specific American staff from service, russia sees that it has successfully planted debilitating mental poison, lies, and propaganda into the brains of US decision makers. The russian poison and lies prevent the US decision makers from clearly stating that russia is behind this, and taking steps to counter the attack.

Below are the original materials that you can watch and read. If you don’t have time for anything else, just watch these two minutes. Greg Edgreen, who ran the military investigation into Havana Syndrome, has this summary and lists important questions that the US is afraid to answer.

https://twitter.com/60Minutes/status/1774591726327341071

On “Navalny” documentary:

Most people with an opinion haven’t watched it. I don‘t want to be “most people.” So I watched it.

TL;DR: It has interesting material about his poisoning and the investigation. You will learn nothing about russia, his politics, or the future.

1/13 A bit more about the movie itself, and how it interacts with the context of March 2023:

The story presented is “a man against the system that tries to silence and kill it.” The “system” part is not explored at all. There are some condescending comments from putin, …

2/13

Let’s talk about “russophobia”. As in, the word and term itself, and the layers of meaning that it brings.

It is a concept manufactured by Kremlin lie factory, and it’s probably best to avoid using it in the free world. I certainly avoid it myself. Allow me to explain.

1/15 Let’s look at the dictionary meaning of “phobia”. Cambridge Dictionary offers us this: “an extreme fear or dislike of a particular thing or situation, especially one that is not reasonable.”

2/15

Mõni mõte venemaast, venelastest, vene inimestest Eestis, tulevikust. Natuke Narva tankist ka, aga selles lõimes on tank ainult üks väike episood pikemas loos.

Pikem lugu algas sadu aastaid tagasi, aga jätame hulga detaile vahele ja kerime kohe aastasse 2022.

1/19 Aastaks 2022 on selge: “russki mir” (RM), sh venemaa on mürgised, vastikud, kuritegelikud. Neist ei ole mitte kunagi midagi head tulnud ja ei hakka ka kunagi tulema. Vaba maailma ainus mõistlik käitumine lähitulevikus on nende täielik isoleerimine ja ignoreerimine.

2/19

THE STORY OF DASHA

I would like tell you about @Daria3children, or Dasha.

This is Dasha and her three kids. Twin boys and little sister. There is also a dad who works elsewhere, they meet every few weeks. They lived in Odesa before russian orcs invaded Ukraine.

1/18 When the war started, they rented a home in a small village outside Odesa. They still have their house in Odesa, which thankfully is in one piece, but as we’ve all seen in the news, the russian orc missiles can hit random houses in cities at any time.

2/18

Is there ANY large international organization (besides EU and NATO) whose performance in Ukraine is NOT a shitshow? UN, ICRC, now Amnesty. All happily doing putin’s work for him. Thread on the Amnesty report:

https://twitter.com/xenasolo/status/1555167248679157763