Slashdot Mirror
Russia Accused of Cyber-War Against Estonia
earthlingpink writes about the ongoing DDoSing of Estonia. The Guardian is reporting that Russia stands accused of engaging in a three-week-long series of cyber-attacks. Government, banking, and media websites have been targeted. It is unclear whether the attacks are sanctioned or initiated by the Russian Government, but Estonian authorities believe that to be the case. NATO has sent security experts to Tallinn to help beef up defenses. The Estonian defense minister said, "At present, NATO does not define cyber-attacks as a clear military action. This means that the provisions of... collective self-defense, will not automatically be extended to the attacked country... this matter needs to be resolved in the near future."
As an American-Estonian (1/3 Estonian on my Mother's side), I can confirm that Russia has been attacking my programming project, making it impossible to debug. And THAT boss is why the project isn't done yet! What can I do when all of Russia is against me?
Where did I hear about this attack? Uh.. slashd... an on-line news source specializing in technical news of course!
Differing from Soviet America how?
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
Are they accusing the Russian government of perpetrating this attack, or are they stating that this attack is coming from Russian soil?
By now, most of the sites under attack have been blocked to the outside traffic. That by itself means the attacks have been successful, information from Estonian government stays in the country.
How would you you fight a DDoS attack and make sure all non-bot users have access?
the Hainan Island incident
before 9/11 in early 2001, a chinese jet fighter bumped a us spy plane it was trying to harass away. the chinese fighter crashed and the pilot was never found, and the spy plane was forced to make an emergency landing on hainan island, where the chinese stripped the plane of equipment and then returned the crew to the usa
what happened for a few tense weeks was a lot of nationalistic chest thumping by chinese and american hackers: chinese hackers defacing poorly patched american servers, everything from small businesses to government systems, and american hackers defacing chinese servers: schools and government (i remember this well as i had a box that was hacked: my home page was replaced with a chinese flag and a "fuck usa", heh)
the point is, it's probably not official, it's probably by an independent group of weakly organized russian hackers upset due to nationalistic pride
the trigger for them is that statue that estonia got rid of in tallinn, which russians probably view as thousands of dead soldiers in the defense of estonia from the nazis, and estonia being ungrateful, and estonians viewing as an example of soviet domination, and a symbol of the past cold war era, and russians trying to retain their dominance
regardless, i expect some pissed off estonian hackers soon to plaster "in soviet russia, estonia hackers hack you!" all over pravda.ru, or something
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And do we really want our tax money buying cyber prostitutes to give our cyber soldiers computer viruses?
You haven't got a clue.
A DDOS attack is basically an attempt to saturate the capacity of the target. The "distributed" part means that it is difficult to screen out the attackers because the machines are on so many different subnets. The flaws that a DDOS relies on are not in the attacked systems, but in the attacking ones which have been compromised and have had software installed that makes them a "bot". A network of these "bots" are then coordinated by the attacker.
And if you think that shutting down the websites of pretty much every government institution, bank and commercial enterprise in a highly connected country like Estonia amounts to "a few eggs thrown over the fence" then just think what it would do your nations economy.
the point is, it's probably not official, it's probably by an independent group of weakly organized russian hackers upset due to nationalistic pride
Given that it is now Putin's Russia, I'm not so sure. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were some winking and nodding coming from the Russian security apparatus.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The problem is the flaws that are being attacked aren't necessarily resident on the machines being attacked - as you know, since you mention zombie computers.
But that doesn't make cyber attack bullshit. That's like saying that land invasions are a made up boogeyman because they depend on flaws like "not having a giant impregnable wall surrounding your country." DDoS attacks, in particular, are problematic. A given target has no way to prevent zombied machines from participating in the attack.
Besides which, a DDoS attack is just a bandwidth race. If my home PC were to be attacked like this, there's nothing I, personally, can do about it. My router won't pass any of the packets to my machine, but if there's 6 Mbps worth of incoming traffic, even if I drop it at the router, I still can't get much legit traffic through. I can call my provider, and see if they can stop it upstream, but then it's just a comparison of the bandwidth at the DSLAM to the bandwidth of the attacker. The only thing to hope for is that, somewhere up the chain, you can reach a node with enough bandwidth that the attacker can't overwhelm it. When you start getting up into backbone territory, this isn't a problem.
But - if we hypothesize for the moment an actual planned assault by a country - odds are pretty good that the US DoD, for example, has more bandwidth than Iran.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Where do you get your facts from?
Every last russian, who is willing to learn the national language is granted citizenship in Estonia
Education is available (on all levels) in both Estonian and Russian
The summary doesn't mention that the attacks started after Estonia began excavating graves of Soviet troops killed during the World War II and vandalized the memorial devoted to them.
Vandalized? Moved to cemetery where it belongs.
Estonia is seen as a neo-fascist regime by Russia, and in my opinion, rightly so
Russia is seen as imperialist regime by Estonia, and in my opinion, rightly so
you can't deny over 30% of your population [estimate of Russian population in Estonia] the most basic rights, including citizenship
You learn the language, pass one exam and voila - the citizenship is yours.
and education for children based on their nationality, and be seen otherwise.
We have schools for Russian-speaking children where most of the subjects are taught in Russian. Unbelievable, yes?
Of course, Europe and the United States ignore this issue.
And Russians ignore the reality. I'm sorry if you do not agree.
The Guardian article is not correct, in stating "the first known incidence of such an assault on a state". James Adams published an article entitled "Virtual Defense" from Foreign Affairs, May/June 2001 that details a number of cyber-attacks on a massive scale, against the United States. Specifically the Pentagon, NASA, as well as private universities and research laboratories, and a number of military defense contractors were targeted and the security breaches were enourmous, with highly sensitive documents vulnerable. Here is a link to the article (brief preview, then they make it available for purchase - sorry) http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20010501faessay4771/ james-adams/virtual-defense.html
According to Foreign Affairs:
The U.S. government now believes that more than 30
nations have developed aggressive computer-warfare programs. The list includes
Russia and China, volatile governments such as Iran and Iraq, and U.S. allies
such as Israel and France...The hackers have built "back doors" through which they can re-enter the infiltrated systems at will and steal further data; they have also left behind tools that reroute specific network traffic through Russia. [end of excerpt]
The danger here is very high, especially for small businesses, who certainly do not have the technical resources of the US military (and even that was breached). Many small businesses have military contracts, etc. In short, this is a genuine act of war, and the potential for breaches of security across small businesses in the US (or really anywhere) is very high.
Nope the starting point of this was the relocation of a large statue of a Soviet soldier from central Tallinn to a Soviet Army military cemetery on the outskirts of the city. The Estonians were occupied twice by the Soviet Union, once at the beginning of World War II and again at the end. The second occupation was billed as a liberation of Estonia by the Soviets, but both times large numbers of Estonians were deported to labour camps in the east of the Soviet Union, many to never return. As a result, the statue came to symbolise the occupation of Estonia, and it was felt it should not be in the centre of the countries capital.
During the Soviet era, a large number of ethnic Russians were settled in Estonia and a program of Russification carried out that tried to extinguish Estonian language and culture. This was a common policy across the Soviet Union, as it was seen as a way of preventing a future break up of the union. The Putin government plays on the tensions amongst these former Soviet populations as a way of reasserting Russias importance in the region.
The bodies that are often mentioned in the news reports are actually located some distance from the original site of the statue. They have been located (there was no sign of their presence above ground) under a tram stop and road junction. Excavation was carried out, and the coffins relocated to the same cemetery as the statue. This is in accordance with war graves agreements that are part of internation law.
The world does not evolve around America kiddy wink!
The politics section originally started out I believe a year or two ago to cover the election and resulting aftermath of "ZOMG BUSH GOT LESS VOTES!" type story. It has since become a more rounded section and carries stories from all over the world under it's banner, because you know "Stuff that matters" is quite often political.
I mean when people start having wars via the Internet (as this rather implies is happening in some twisted form) it starts to effect us geeks as well. So we discuss it on Slashdot and because it's political based they used the politics banner.
I feel sorry for you if you can't see that the FAQ maybe outdated and this has been this way for a good few months (maybe 12+) now, so decide to grind your axe on a stone that's been here longer than you probably have (Anoncow has no ID so I can't tell from your number, but I have to assume you're new if you don't understand the politics section).
I like muppets.
Huh? How's the German military intelligence service connected to this?
And yes, I do find the choice of the acronym highly ironic.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That's why in Hunt for Red October, Sean Connery says "ping -c 1 sub.navy.mil" (or simply "One ping only")
That joke worked so well in my head :-(
i would like to open this nationalistic chest thumping thread with an exhortation from the rest of us here at slashdot: please be extremely hysterical and hot-headed and entertaining
please be accusing each other's mothers of various acts of bestiality and extreme promiscuity, and do not go lightly on the creative threats of violence, including skewering the eyes with pokers, and the twisting of testicles in various farm machinery. proper english grammar is optional, in fact, it is better if your english grammar is nonexistent
ok, my popcorn is ready, any russian want to respond to the above estonian?
go!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i am not vouching for the authenticity of one view or another, i am merely stating that there are two different views, a russian one, and an estonian one. obviously, both sides are very emotional about it
bu if you ask you me anyways, my personal attitude is that you poor poles, lithuanians, latvians and estonians have been the battleground of the power struggle between berlin and moscow for centuries. i champion the underdog and the little guy, and that's obviously estonia in this case, so i'm with you:
fuck the russians (and the germans). it's easy to pick on your small neighbors isn't it, you fucking autocratic assholes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And the Russians, who are so indignant that their soldiers bodies were "desecrated" by moving them to a military cemetary, seem to forget one historical fact: They themselves cared very little for their own dead in WWII. Not that they cared too much for the living either. The road to Berlin is littered with unburied bodies.
As to who is doing the "cyber attacks". It's hard to determine the origin of a DDoS attack, but the timing and context seems to point to Russian intervention. However, this is unlikely to be direct government intervention, but rather it uses a proxy organization such as the Putin Youth (Nashi). The same government sponsored (but nominally independent) group attacked the Estonian embassy. Correct me if i'm wrong, but could this not be construed as casus belli in an of itself (that is, if Estonia had such designs and the capability to carry them to a conclusion). If the Russians are willing attack an embassy, which results in no real economic damage to Estonia, but huge reputational damage to Russia, why would they shy from sponsoring DDoS attacks against Estonia to cause real economic damage?
The summary doesn't mention that the attacks started after Estonia began excavating graves of Soviet troops killed during the World War II and vandalized the memorial devoted to them. Estonia is seen as a neo-fascist regime by Russia, and in my opinion, rightly so: you can't deny over 30% of your population [estimate of Russian population in Estonia] the most basic rights, including citizenship and education for children, based on their nationality, and be seen otherwise. Of course, Europe and the United States ignore this issue.
Let me give you another perspective on this. You can decide whether or not you want to stick to your guns here. Are you by any chance married to a Russian woman? Because if you are, that will certainly inhibit your ability to see the other side.
Estonia was under Russian control until 1918. It remained an independent nation until 1940, when the USSR invaded it. Germany occupied it from 1941 to 1944. During the 1 year or so of Soviet occupation prior to the Nazi invation, the Soviets did such nice things as kill the intellectuals and forcibly conscript Estonians into the Red Army. I can't say it's any wonder that as in Ukraine (where Stalin and his henchmen had killed and starved to death millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s), the locals viewed the Nazis as liberators and then found out that they were just as bad if not worse as the Soviets. Do note that the USA never recognized the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. NEVER. It's important to know that for over 50 years, official US policy was that the occupation of these 3 countries was illegal.
After WWII ended, Estonia was screwed. They were part of the Soviet Union. The Soviets moved hundreds of thousands of Russian speaking immigrants into Estonia in an attempt to "Russify" it and to dilute Estonian nationalism. Estonian freedom fighters fought a small scale guerilla war against the USSR into the early 1950s when they finally gave up and realized it was hopeless.
During the USSR period, Russian was the official language in education. It was possible to have education in whatever the local language was (Krushchev made some changes that allowed this), but there was a catch - if you wanted to get a good job, you absolutely had to speak Russian well. Given that Russian and Estonian are about as closely related as English is to Polish, you might understand that Estonian parents had no choice but to send their kids to Russian language schools so as to give them the best chance to prosper in the USSR.
Cut to 1991 when Estonia gets its independence. They now have a rather large Russian speaking population who they were forced to accept by a government that no longer exist. These people have never assimilated into Estonian society. In fact, they were encouraged immigrate there specifically to dilute Estonia's sense of national identity and to turn them into "good little Soviet subjects". These immigrants have never bothered to learn the Estonian language since Russian was the official language of the government prior to 1991. Now you have all these people who say "Screw you! We want to speak Russian!" in a country where the majority of citizens speak the local language, Estonian. They demand that everything be done in Russian so they can understand it. The Estonians never wanted to speak Russian to begin with, so they are promoting the use of their national language. Now you have about 26% of the population who refuses to "get with the program", demands that their language be given equal footing with the national tongue and even worse, feels that things were a lot better back when they were in charge and the stupid locals were taking orders from them. So given that Estonia never wanted the Soviets/Russians there to begin with and the Soviets weren't exactly enlightened when they ran the show, can you really blame them for not being real happy with Russia today? By the way, ethnic Russians can become Estonian citizens, but they have to take
For the love of freedom, just patch the boxes and shut up!
You just don't get it do you? A DDOS is not indicative of a flaw in the systems under attack, it is using the regular means of access to the systems (HTTP requests mostly) but doing it on a massive scale from machines around the world taht have been compromised. Or are you suggesting that Estonian sysadmins perform the impossible and patch all these lousy Windows boxes on various ISP accounts around the world?
Unless you've experienced a large scale DDOS or read the detailed summary of how one was handled then all I can suggest is looking at some descriptions of what a DDOS is. Wikipedia is a good start. Our Payment Service Provider received a blackmail threat a couple of years ago, and then experienced a massive ten day long DDOS attack. Once it was over they provided us with a very detailed account of the attack. What impressed me was the sheer number of machines used in the attack and how evenly spread around the world they were. Trying to contact the relevant sysadmins or ISPs for these machines was simply not feasible.
Nice try, it was put there for the soldiers that died freeing the country of the Nazis. What happened during the occupation is a different matter but don't try to rewrite history.
Since you are using the "If the US..." metaphor then how about if US war cemetaries in France and Belgium were dug up and moved and the monuments carted off? I think we'd be pretty upset.
Funny that you should mention Israel in your comment. Seeing as the Baltic states collaborated with the Nazis in exterminating Jews.
I agree that Russia should face up to what they did after the war but to dismiss their sacrifices during WWII and to make the Baltic states look like innocent lambs is disgraceful. Don't lump one with the other.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I've said this again, but until Russia (and other Eastern bloc countries) start taking cybercrime seriously, it should just be cut off the net entirely.
Most of the botnets in the world are controlled by Russian mafia. The rest of the world is spending an insane amount of time, money and effort defending against these attacks that orginate 90% from one part of the world. It's like criminally created welfare program, and we're all paying.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Eh.. where are you getting this "information"? What you are saying and presenting is just false.
After Estonia became independent all persons who's forefathers had been citizens of Estonia before Soviet occupation were granted automatic citizenship, this group also included Russians that had arrived before the occupation. In 1992 about 32% of peoples in Estonia didn't have any citizenship, these are the people who's forefathers became to the country Russianize the country. As Estonian government didn't want to do the same things that Russians (Soviet Union) did, that is to start mass deportations, they settled on making knowledge of Estonian language and history as a requirements on having a citizenship. To ease the task for population without citizenship, Estonian government organizes free language studies so that all willing can prepare and succeed on taking the test. In 2006 only 9% of population didn't have any citizenship and 7,4% had another citizenship. So nobody is denying Estonian citizenship, it's possible for individual to get it, some just or either lazy or stubborn. Also all children in Estonia are educated, they have a right to go to a school, and nobody is denying that. Those who's mother language is Russia get to study with their own language and they also teach Estonian as part of the curriculum.
There is nothing that Russia and Russians can complain. People can acquire citizenship, many just don't want to, and there is education for all. If you look the situation in Russia, well you won't see same things as you see in Estonia or other CIVILIZED places. In Russia minorities are suppressed, in example Mari people who are natives and who's language belongs to Finno-Ugric family are been suppressed! They don't get any education in their language, they don't get anything. If Russia and Russians want to say something about other countries and nations, they should start by cleaning their own backyard. The only thing that Russia and Russians who are complaining and putting up Soviet style crap, are only making the rest of the world more hostile against Russia.
PS. And btw. in the world you have the baddest situation with neo-nazis. In 9th of May, when you celebrate the victory on world war 2, foreign students are asked to stay inside dorms and not go out, same with other foreigners. Why? Well if you go then, or in any other day and if you are Black, Asian or Arab there is a big danger that you are beaten or stabbed. That is scary. Also how you have treated Georgians and bullied with them, just shows you that current Russia is just the fascist country that it accuses on others.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
The statue has also practical meaning.
It has become focus point of Russian nationalists in Estonia who are Estonian version of neo nazis. Given any excuses those nationalists used to gather near the statue, get drunk and start breaking places, and in many cases also people, including tourists.
The problems did get bad enough that Finnish tourists were advised to steer clear of the statue during night.
And since tourism is important income to Estonia, it is clear that the statue had to go. They could have picked better time to do it, like couple months after victory day celebrations.
Russians were just another aggressive force during WWII, they've beaten nazis but were not a lot better, eastern Europe still remembers that Red Army troops were the mostly savages that raped, plundered and killed everything they saw. Of course there are exceptions but you can't blame, polish people for renaming Adolf Hitler Platz to the Slavic Frendship Square (example from my hometown) and removing other symbols of occupation, it's not illegal according to internetional law either. 30% of estonian population is not denied citizenship, AFAIK it's just that a lot of Russians didn't learn Estonian language even after living there for many years, they're not trying to be a part of this society.
In both Finland and Canada when they became independent, the minorities both Swedish and French had been there for relatively long and they were well integrated to the majority. In Estonia the case is very different, most of the Russians were transported there to colonize the Estonia and transform it to be a part of Russia. In Estonia minority wasn't well integrated to majority, majority was by force tried to integrate to minority.
PS. In Finland there has been much discussion about making Finnish the only national language and giving Swedish official minority language status. Times change, statistics change and needs change. In Estonia there is need to support the Estonian language and culture after 50 years of oppression. For this it's only natural that Estonia's only official language is Estonian. Luckily for you Russians, Estonians have been tolerant and not banned Russian language, they have assured same right to all, they have given education to all even in Russian. So shut the fuck up, and fix first problems in Russia.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
Lets hope they've upped their defences since then.
Here's another Estonian perspective, to complement the "official" line above:
- The memory of WW2 is, hopefully obviously for most Slashdotters, very very important for all Russians wherever they may live.
- The monument in question was the prime memorial spot, primarily for the Russian population, to commemorate the war and the victory, in the country.
- The monument in question - quite inoffensive statue of a mourning soldier in Soviet uniform - had stood at its spot for 60 years, including all of Estonia's reindependence, with respect and dignity, without any problems, or almost anyone associating it with Communism.
- Some hardcore nationalists (some of whom could be considered neo-nazis) apparently disagreed, and had staged some earlier acts of vandalism against the monument, which in context, made it all the more dearer for those who held it dear for the local Russians.
- After another provocation on the 9th of May last year, the government basically simply assumed the so far ultranationalist stance, protesting not the provokers, or people who might be using the memory of WW2 for propaganda, but claiming that the *monument*, which had stood there just fine for many decades, had somehow, overnight, turned into a horrible symbol of Soviet repression, removal of which is supposedly a matter of honor and principle. Basically, very foolishly and irresponsibly, pitting the respect of WW2 against the respect for the country.
- Transferring a statue from one place to another might not seem to be such a big deal, but it's all about the context. The government basically agreed to the same stance the few neo-nazis in the country had, yet didn't make the slightest attempt to address the concerns of those (mainly Russians) who legitimately saw it as a symbol of defeat over Nazism, and had done so for decades. On the contrary, the honorers of the monument were smeared in the media and portrayed as drunks who use the war as an excuse to drunkenly dance on graves and to glorify the Soviet power. This ignorance and disrespect towards things the Russians hold dear, resonated deeply with other political issues, and the local Russians' feelings of inequality and guilt-tripping for things Stalin did before most of them were even born.
- As the government would *still* go on with the oh-so-inconsequential plan of transferring that sad statue to its new place, somehow figuring that using riot police and tear gas on the thousands protesters was justified... in order to appease a nationalist frenzy the government themselves had spun up. Rioting, looting and vandalism ensued. Not because of the statue, not because of the history, but out of hate for the government which, by removing the monument, the presumptions, excuses and justifications for doing so, demonstrated utter contempt and disregard towards the local Russian community, which then essentially responded with "f..k you".
Anyway, what I wanted to say as far as Slashdot is concerned:
Great majority of Russians are GENUINELY p...ed off against Estonia, not because of history, not because of the statue, but because of the hateful, spiteful attitude the government has displayed and keeps displaying towards its Russian countrymen, and which the removal of the statue, despite countless pleas, debates, warnings for the whole year, was a glaring testament of. According to the latest polls, only 6% of Russians on either side of the border agreed with the Estonian government's actions, and a whole lot more people are more upset than that.
Hence, it is more than likely that the DDOS attacks are in fact spontaneous activism, and not sponsored by Kremlin, which has different and less obvious means at its disposal.
While it was no walk in the park, so long as you were neither Jewish nor Romani, life was quite a lot better under German occupation than under Russian occupation. (Jews and Romani had it as bad in Estonia under the Nazis as anywhere in occupied Europe.) Here in the West, we view Hitler as the arch villain. In Estonia, it is Stalin who is viewed as such. Therefore when you make a statement alluding to how "millions of soldiers died fighting the Nazis and protecting Estonia" you display an ignorance of history. It is like saying that the wolf is protecting the rabbit when it drives off the hawk. Truly the Estonians wanted neither the Russians NOR the Germans as overlords.
Bullish Machine Tzar
You make some good points from the Estonian point of view, but there is more to the issue. Most importantly, note that Staling was not Russian, nor did Russian people ever choose or elect him in any meaningful way. Soviet occupation of Estonia was indeed marked with arresting intellectuals and shipping thousands of people off to Siberia. Terrible, but not significantly different from what Stalin did in other parts of the USSR, including Russia itself. Indeed, it was Soviet policy to encourage Russians to settle all over the USSR, in order to unify and strengthen the country. I'm not defending the Soviets, but for a vast, multi-ethnic country, this policy does make practical sense. Not many of the Russians settlers deliberately chose to oppress Estonians, and many might not have chosen to move there -- it was a Soviet policy. When it comes to the citizenship question, your analogy with Spanish speakers in the U.S. is flawed. Most present-day Russians in Estonia were born there, and have no other land or citizenship. The situation to Estonia is more analogous to the hypothetical example of Canada stripping all Quebecois (French-speaking, natural-born Canadians) of citizenship until they passed an English exam. It would, of course, cause an uproar and be a significant human rights violation.
You obviously aren't from Estonia.
If you are talking solely about Estonian history then yes Nazi troops were nothing compared to soviet terror when about 10% of the population was deported, families torn, culture destroyed, people arrested, killed, houses pillaged by Russian soldiers etc. Read up:_ Republics o ns_en.pdf
The problem with this bronze soldier issue is thathttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Baltic
http://www.historycommission.ee/temp/pdf/conclusi
1) Estonians hate their soviet occupation period and want NOTHING to remind them of it. Especially red flags appearing every year (9th of May) in the city center by the Bronze Soldier (now moved to cemetery) provoking both sides and creating more hate.
2) Russia has great pride and thinks of themselves as the leaders of all. And also they think of them as saviors of the world of Nazis. This all makes this monument important to them.
There is truth to both sides.
The thing is this all should actually have nothing to do with Russia and it is unfortunate how they keep shitting on their small neighbors.
About all the oppression talk: you can get Estonian citizenship really easily. I think there is zero oppression of the Russian minority in Estonia. They have had 20 years to learn Estonian, exams are easy as hell, all the biggest newspapers, internet sites, tv news are translated. The second biggest political party is very Russian friendly.
Also I have many friends that are Russian and they are doing exceptionally well in their field of business here (btw they all have learned our language) and they think Estonia to be their fatherland. Damn, I had a Russian girlfriend :)
Stop messing with our country, Russia.
This is a one sided history lesson. Interesting, but wrong and off-the topic. The fact is that Estonian population embraced Nazis, happily run concentration caps and helped execute thousands of civilians. It is the rebirth of Fascism that drove the removal of this monument. It has nothing to do with "Soviet occupation" or anything else. I quoted occupation because Estonian helped to install Soviet rule in Russia. If they felt that it was good for Russia, why was not it good for them? This monument was not for Stalin, it was not for NKVD (secret police) Chief Beria, not for NKVD soldiers. It had nothing to do with occupation. It was for people who gave their live to go west and liberate people from concentration caps. It might not be understandable for some. When you run concentration camp it's hard to see how troops which came to open it up are liberating anybody, but trust me for people who where inside it was indeed a liberation. For these who were scheduled to be gazed, tortured and killed it was the liberation. Try to talk to these people who were in concentration camps and you will understand. Do you really want to say that that Jewish medic lady who died pulling soldiers from the battle was buried under this monument died while trying to occupy Estonia? What a bunch of gibberish, really. It's the rebirth of fascism in Estonia, plain and simple.