Estonia angry at Russia 'abduction' on border

[geek tragedy]

Source: BBC

Estonia's foreign ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador over what it calls the abduction of an Estonian security official by "unidentified individuals from Russia" on the border.

A ministry statement said the incident had taken place inside Estonia on Friday, near Luhamaa border checkpoint.

The missing Estonian official works for the Estonian Internal Security Service.

Russia says it detained an Estonian security official on a "spying operation" on Russian territory.


Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29078400

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People were asking whether Russia would act aggressively towards a NATO member?

[William769]

1. See my response here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5493787

[geek tragedy]

2. Yep. But, the way to contain a feral, rabid animal is generally to not wrestle

with it, but rather to put it in a cage.

[Louisiana1976]

3. All Putin wants is peace--a piece of Ukraine, a piece of Kazakhstan, a piece of Estonia......

[ColesCountyDem]

4. Where are Comrade Major Putin's defenders?

Their silence as been deafening lately....

[geek tragedy]

5. oh, DU's pro-fascist contingent has still been plenty busy, just ducking this kind of thread until

they get their talking points via Russian state media

[Blue_Tires]

6. That's my question as well...

My guess is they're waiting until some fringe blogger or former journalist-turned-nutbar prints a story linking about a dozen circumstantial and unrelated facts together to prove that this abduction was engineered by Washington just to make Putin look bad...

[leftynyc]

7. Waiting until RT gives them

the REAL story.

[7962]

27. +11111!!

[geek tragedy]

14. they've arrived, here to tell us that Estonia is being rather silly by having its border

violated and its official kidnapped by Russia.

Because, don't you know, a certain crowd just can't bring themselves to ever, ever, every criticize Russia.

[ColesCountyDem]

23. I've been reading their responses, and they're entirely predictable.

Now that RT has given them the 'truth', they're echoing the party line.

[Fred Sanders]

8. Estonia is a country. It can not be "angry". What is a Russia "abduction"?

[Igel]

24. It's called synecdoche.

It's a rhetorical device that's typically taught in high school these days. It's like referring to cows as "head" (of cattle). Or refer to men or women as their private parts.


As for "Russia 'abduction'," English has been moving away from morphological marking of adjectives in favor of simple linguistic coercion. I've caught myself using "Turkey", for instance, when normative English stylistics would call for "Turkish." "Turkey elections" and "Turkey politics."

In any event, minor grammatical quibbles like this seldom cause real comprehension difficulties even in the weakest of L2 speakers of English. It's mostly fake outrage when nothing better can be said. When in doubt, focus on formal minutia to distract from substantive issues.

Weak.

[Fred Sanders]

25. On the contrary, assigning the speakings of one minister to an entire nation is the weakness.

[Xolodno]

9. Seriously????

This is an escalation between Estonia and Russia? Good grief man!


more from the article:

Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves tweeted "let's not jump to conclusions, folks. Estonia extremely good at stopping organised crime & smuggling. Among best controlled borders in EU".

What's going to be the next news story of "escalation"?

Putin farts in a westerly direction today, inciting more tensions!!!! (while relieving his own).

Cameron said he smelt it all the way in London and it was hideous.

The US Government says we should now sanction Russia with a ban on cabbage.

Merkel called Putin to tell him that he should now fart in a southernly direction to avoid more complications.

...

Putin responded to Cameron by stating "he who smelt it, dealt it"

[geek tragedy]

10. so you think kidnapping another government's

officials is no big deal?

Would you really be so dismissive if the US kidnapped a security official from Cuba or Venezuela?

Ilves is trying to get people to not freak out about Russian tanks being the next step.

[Xolodno]

11. /facepalm

[img][/img]

[geek tragedy]

13. so, if the US decided to kidnap Venezuelan security officials

you'd think that was just a fart in the wind?

[Xolodno]

16. OH MY GOD!!!

Since when does Venezuela border the USA?

There is a thousand and one reasons this could have happened.

He strolled over the Russian border by accident...

He strolled too close to the border and a border patrol assumed he was on the Russian side erroneously...remember when Mexican troops accidentally crossed into US Territory?

No but you choose:

Its an act of aggression by PUTIN!!! Yeah because he was there personally to order it...because he micro-manages every inch of the border!!! He's a maniac.

You want to indulge in such fantasies be my guest. But I'm ignoring any response after this.....making mountain over a mole hill.

[geek tragedy]

18. and the radio jamming was accidental too I suppose.

And how those Russian soldiers were some 70KM inside Ukraine by mistake. And that the ones who were shooting at the Ukrainian military were just on vacation.

Amazing how many mistakes Russia makes that leads to it violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its neigbhors.

The Estonians summoned the Russian ambassador over it.

And those who are incapable of criticizing Russia insist there's nothing to see here.

[Xolodno]

19. I'll allow myself one more....then I'm done.

1. Article says NOTHING about them being 70km away.

2. Estonia is a NATO county...Russia see's NATO as a threat.

3. This guy had eavesdropping equipment.

4. Russia doesn't know if he's looking to stop organized crime....spy on communications or both.

But you say, its NATO! We pee sugar and shit unicorns! So this has to be an escalation by PUTIN!!! The mad man of the world! Because we pee sugar and spice and shit unicorns!

I've been avoiding these threads mostly because these threads have gone from crazy to bat shit crazy. I'm going back to that aversion...or just put you on ignore.

[geek tragedy]

20. "this guy had eavesdropping equipment"

and you know this to be true, how?

Oh yeah, the Russian government told you so!

[Xolodno]

21. ...

He was, the FSB said, carrying a pistol, 5,000 euros (£3,980; $6,539) in cash, an eavesdropping device and "other materials related to intelligence-gathering".

....and no denial by Estonia.

[7962]

28. Might as well put the REAL WORLD on "ignore" too. Since you're oblivious to it. nt

[newthinking]

26. He had $5000 and a gun and was investigating smuggling and had a wiretap. He was

on an investigation and probably was trying to wire tap bad guys. The most likely explaination is something may have gone wrong?

I have to wonder the wisdom of making this front page headlines since it could actually endanger him further?

I read it in the Guardian (not RT). He was a specialist in illegal cross border smuggling.

[cosmicone]

12. LMAO

[Bosonic]

22. Seriously.

Direct from Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves Twitter account:

Just back from KAPO. Confirmed that abduction occurred in the course of cross border corruption investigation. Documented. On Estonian soil.

https://twitter.com/IlvesToomas/status/507980939696537601

8:57 PM - 5 Sep 2014

Russia admitted this is the work of their special services

https://twitter.com/IlvesToomas/status/507981195163209728

8:58 PM - 5 Sep 2014

[cosmicone]

15. There are just not enough details to jump to any conclusion.

We don't know what sort of security official it was.
We don't know which side of the border he was doing there.

It is very much unlike Russia to just randomly grab someone in another country and carry them across the border. Our beloved CIA does that in the name of "extraordinary rendition" .. so even if Russia did do it, we are hypocritical about it.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

17. They've also been flying planes into Finland's airspace,

see here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/30/us-ukraine-crisis-finland-defence-idUSKBN0GU0R820140830

The immaturity of Putin knows no bounds. Just as a reminder, this stuff didn't start with Ukraine. It started with Georgia, in 2008. At the time that was happening, even Bush's anemic response drew this:

...this is pretty jaw-dropping stuff - the Chinese told Hank Paulson that the Russians were suggesting a joint pact with China to drive down the price of the debt of Fannie and Freddie, and maximize the turmoil on Wall Street - presumably with a view to maximizing the cost of the rescue for Washington and further damaging its financial health.

Paulson says this guerrilla skirmish in markets by the Russians and Chinese didn't happen.

But this kind of intelligence from China on Russian desire and willingness to embarrass the US in a financial sense may help to explain - in a small way - why President Obama shows little desire to understand Crimea as seen by Mr Putin.

And maybe if the US is being a bit more robust than the EU in wanting to impose economic and financial sanctions on Russia, that may not all be about America's much lesser dependence (negligible dependence) on Russian gas and oil.

Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26609548

I have no idea why anyone sees Putin as anything but a farcical loon. I'm sure that's how the Chinese see him.