Soviet deportations from Estonia - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

had occupied Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

in 1940 and retaken it from Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

again in 1944, tens of thousands of Estonia's citizens underwent deportation

Deportation

Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...

in the 1940s. Deportations were predominantly to Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

and Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

by means of railroad cattle cars, without prior announcement, while deported were given few night hours at best to pack their belongings and separated from their families, usually also sent to the east. The procedure was established by the Serov Instructions. Estonians residing in Leningrad Oblast

Leningrad Oblast

Leningrad Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . It was established on August 1, 1927, although it was not until 1946 that the oblast's borders had been mostly settled in their present position...

had already been subjected to deportation since 1935. The first repressions in Estonia affected Estonia's national elite. On July 17, 1940, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces Johan Laidoner

Johan Laidoner

Johan Laidoner was a seminal figure of Estonian history between the world wars. His highest position was Commander-in-chief of the Estonian Army in 1918–1920, 1924–1925, and 1934–1940.-Education:Laidoner was born in Viiratsi , Governorate of Livonia, then part of the Russian Empire...

(died in 1953 in Vladimir prison

Vladimir Prison

The Vladimir Prison, colloquially known as "Vladimirsky Central" , is a prison for dangerous criminals, about 100 miles northeast of Moscow in Vladimir, Russia. It was established in 1783. Most are serving a minimum of 10 years, and some are imprisoned for life...

) and his family, and on July 30, 1940, President

President of Estonia

The President of the Republic is the head of state of the Republic of Estonia.Estonia is a parliamentary republic, therefore President is mainly a symbolic figure and holds no executive power. The President has to suspend his membership in any political party for his term in office...

Konstantin Päts

Konstantin Päts VR I/1 and III/1 was the most influential politician of interwar Estonia. He was one of the first Estonians to become active in politics and started an almost 40-year political rivalry with Jaan Tõnisson, first through journalism with his newspaper Teataja, later through politics...

(died in 1956 in a psikhushka

Psikhushka

In the Soviet Union, systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place. Soviet psychiatric hospitals were used by the authorities as prisons in order to isolate hundreds or thousands of political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally...

in Kalinin Oblast) and his family were deported to Penza

Penza

-Honors:A minor planet, 3189 Penza, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1978, is named after the city.-Notable residents:...

and Ufa

Ufa

-Demographics:Nationally, dominated by Russian , Bashkirs and Tatars . In addition, numerous are Ukrainians , Chuvash , Mari , Belarusians , Mordovians , Armenian , Germans , Jews , Azeris .-Government and administration:Local...

, respectively. In 1941 they were arrested. The country political and military leadership was deported almost entirely, including 10 of 11 ministers and 68 of 120 members of parliament

Riigikogu

The Riigikogu is the unicameral parliament of Estonia. All important state-related questions pass through the Riigikogu...

June deportation of 1941

In Estonia, as well as in other territories annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939–1940, the first large-scale deportation of ordinary citizens was carried out by the local operational headquarters of the NKGB of the Estonian SSR under Boris Kumm (chairman), Andres Murro, Aleksei Shkurin, Veniamin Gulst and Rudolf James according to the top secret

Classified information

Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...

joint decree No 1299-526ss "Directive on the Deportation of the Socially Alien Element from the Baltic Republics, Western Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, Western Belorussia and Moldavia

Moldavia

Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

'" by the Central Committee

Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , abbreviated in Russian as ЦК, "Tse-ka", earlier was also called as the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party ...

of the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks) and the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

of May 14, 1941. On June 14, 1941, and the following two days, 9,254–10,861 people, mostly urban residents, of them over 5,000 women and over 2,500 children under 16, 439 Jews (more than 10% of the Estonian Jewish population

History of the Jews in Estonia

The history of the Jews in Estonia starts with individual reports of Jews in what is now Estonia from as early as the 14th century. However, the process of permanent Jewish settlement in Estonia began in the 19th century, especially after they were granted the official right to enter the region by...

) were deported, mostly to Kirov Oblast

Kirov Oblast

Kirov Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Kirov. Population: -History:In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Vyatka remained a place of exile for opponents of the tsarist regime, including many prominent revolutionary figures.In 1920, a number of...

, Novosibirsk Oblast

Novosibirsk Oblast

Novosibirsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia located in southwestern Siberia. Its administrative and economic center is the city of Novosibirsk. Population: -Overview:...

or prisons. Three hundred were shot. Only 4,331 persons have ever returned to Estonia. 11,102 people were to be deported from Estonia according to the order of June 13, but some managed to escape. Identical deportations were carried out in Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

and Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

at the same time. Few weeks later, approximately 1,000 people were arrested on Saaremaa

Saaremaa

Saaremaa is the largest island in Estonia, measuring 2,673 km². The main island of Saare County, it is located in the Baltic Sea, south of Hiiumaa island, and belongs to the West Estonian Archipelago...

for deportation, but the Great Patriotic War started for the Soviet Union and a considerable part of the prisoners were freed by the advancing German forces.

During the first year of Soviet rule nearly 54,000 Estonian citizens were executed, deported or mobilized into the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

. Following the German attack against the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, in early July, 33,000 Estonian men were conscripted into the Soviet Army

Soviet Army

The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...

. On July 10, 1941, the conscripts from the annexed territories were declared not reliable and sent to labor camps

Gulag

The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...

, where many died. 5,600 more were drafted, but defected soon. In July 1941 Estonia was conquered by Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

, who were forced out by advancing Soviet troops in 1944. Immediately prior to the Soviet government regaining control, about 70,000 persons fled abroad for Germany

Nazi Germany

and Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

. As soon as the Soviets had returned the deportations resumed. The first wave of deportation has always been well documented, as many witnesses were subsequently able to flee abroad during the Second World War. Deportations after 1944 were, however, much harder to document. 18 families (51 persons) were transferred to Tyumen Oblast

Tyumen Oblast

Tyumen Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Tyumen. The oblast has administrative jurisdiction over two autonomous okrugs—Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Tyumen is the largest city, with over half a million inhabitants...

in October (51 persons), 37 families (87 persons) in November and other 37 families (91 persons) in December as "Traitor of Motherland family members". Also in 1944 at least 30,000 were mobilized for labour service in other parts of the Soviet Union. In August 1945, 407 persons, most of them of German descent, were transferred from Estonia to Perm Oblast

Perm Oblast

Until December 1, 2005, Perm Oblast was a federal subject of Russia in Privolzhsky Federal District. According to the results of the referendum held in October 2004, Perm Oblast was merged with Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug to form Perm Krai.The oblast was named after its administrative center,...

March deportation in 1949

During the collectivization period in the Baltic republics, on January 29, 1949, the Council of Ministers issued top secret

Top Secret

Top Secret generally refers to the highest acknowledged level of classified information.Top Secret may also refer to:- Film and television :* Top Secret , a British comedy directed by Mario Zampi...

decree No. 390–138ss, which obligated the Ministry for State Security

Ministry for State Security (USSR)

The Ministry of State Security was the name of Soviet secret police from 1946 to 1953.-Origins of the MGB:The MGB was just one of many incarnations of the Soviet State Security apparatus. Since the revolution, the Bolsheviks relied on a strong political police or security force to support and...

(MGB) to exile the kulaks and the people's enemies from the three Baltic Republics forever. In the early morning of March 25, 1949, the second major wave of deportation from the Baltic Republics, operation "Priboy"

Operation Priboi

Operation Priboi was the code name for the Soviet mass deportation from the Baltic states on March 25–28, 1949, called March deportation by Baltic historians. Some 90,000 Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, labeled as enemies of the people, were deported to inhospitable areas of the Soviet Union...

(Breakers), carried out by MGB

Ministry for State Security (USSR)

began, which was planned to affect 30,000 in Estonia, including peasants. Lieutenant General Pyotr Burmak, commander of the MGB Internal Troops

Internal Troops

The Internal Troops, full name Internal Troops of the Ministry for Internal Affairs ; alternatively translated as "Interior " is a paramilitary gendarmerie-like force in the now-defunct Soviet Union and its successor countries, particularly, in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan...

, was in generally charge for the operation. In Estonia the deportations were coordinated by Boris Kumm, Minister of Security of Estonian SSR, and Major General Ivan Yermolin, MGB representative to Estonia. Over 8,000 managed to escape, but 20,722 (7,500 families, over 2.5 percent of the Estonian population, half of them women, over 6,000 children under the age of 16, and 4,300 men) were sent to Siberia

Siberia

during three days. A little over 10 percent of them were men of working age. The deported included disabled people, pregnant women, newborns and children separated from their parents. The youngest deportee was 1-day-old Virve Eliste from Hiiumaa island, who died a year later in Siberia; the oldest was 95-year-old Maria Raagel. Nine trains of people were directed to Novosibirsk Oblast

Novosibirsk Oblast

Novosibirsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia located in southwestern Siberia. Its administrative and economic center is the city of Novosibirsk. Population: -Overview:...

, six to Krasnoyarsk Krai

Krasnoyarsk Krai

Krasnoyarsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia . It is the second largest federal subject after the Sakha Republic, and Russia's largest krai, occupying an area of , which is 13% of the country's total territory. The administrative center of the krai is the city of Krasnoyarsk...

, two to Omsk Oblast

Omsk Oblast

Omsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , located in southwestern Siberia. The oblast has an area of and a population of with the majority, 1.15 million, living in Omsk, the administrative center....

, two to Irkutsk Oblast

Irkutsk Oblast

Irkutsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , located in southeastern Siberia in the basins of Angara River, Lena, and Nizhnyaya Tunguska Rivers. The administrative center is the city of Irkutsk. Population: -History:...

. Many of them perished, most have never returned home. This second wave of the large-scale deportations was aimed to facilitate collectivization, which was implemented with great difficulties in the Baltic republics. As a result, by the end of April 1949, half of the remaining individual farmers in Estonia had joined kolkhoz

Kolkhoz

A kolkhoz , plural kolkhozy, was a form of collective farming in the Soviet Union that existed along with state farms . The word is a contraction of коллекти́вное хозя́йство, or "collective farm", while sovkhoz is a contraction of советское хозяйство...

es.

During 1948–1950, a number of Ingrian Finns

Ingrian Finns

The Ingrian Finns are the Finnish population of Ingria descending from Lutheran Finnish immigrants introduced to the area in the 17th century, when Finland and Ingria were both part of the Swedish Empire...

were also deported from Estonian SSR. The last large-scale campaign of deportations from Estonia took place in 1951, when members of prohibited religious groups from the Baltic countries, Moldavia

Moldavia

Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

, Western Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

and Belorussia were subject to forced resettlement.

Continuous deportation

Outside the main waves, individuals and families were continually deported on smaller scale from the start of the first occupation in 1940 up to the Khrushchev Thaw

Khrushchev Thaw

The Khrushchev Thaw refers to the period from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were partially reversed and millions of Soviet political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps, due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and...

of 1956 when destalinisation led Soviet Union to switch its tactic of terror from mass repressions to individual repressions. The Soviet deportations only stopped for three years in 1941–1944 when Estonia was occupied by Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

(see Occupation of Estonia by Nazi Germany

Occupation of Estonia by Nazi Germany

After Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Army Group North reached Estonia in July.Initially the Germans were perceived by most Estonians as liberators from the USSR and its repressions, having arrived only a week after the first mass deportations from the Baltics...

).

Estonians' experience with the first year of Soviet occupation, which included the June deportation

June deportation

June deportation was the first in the series of mass Soviet deportations of tens of thousands of people from the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova starting June 14, 1941 that followed the occupation and annexation of the Baltic states. The procedure for deporting the "anti-Soviet...

, led to two significant developments:

It motivated a major wave of refugees leaving Estonia, mostly by ships over the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

in late 1944, after the news about Nazi Germany's withdrawal became public. About 70,000 people are known to have arrived in their destination; an unknown number perished due to the autumn storms and naval warfare.
It incentivised many Estonians, who had previously been rather sceptical about joining German army (between January 1943 and February 1944, about 4000 people, mostly male, over half of them below 24 years old, i.e. draftable, had fled to Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

) to join the recently created foreign legions of Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...

, to still try to keep Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

off Estonian soil and thus, avoid a new Soviet occupation. The attempt failed. For an example of such an ethnic foreign legion, see 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian).

Only in 1956, during Khrushchev Thaw

Khrushchev Thaw

, were some survived deportees allowed to return to Estonia.

Legal status

On July 27, 1950 diplomats-in-exile of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania appealed to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

to support a United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

investigation of "genocidal mass deportations" they said were being carried out in their countries by the Soviet Union.

Soviet acknowledgment of Stalin's deportations

Stalin's deportation of peoples was criticized in closed section of Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...

's 1956 Report to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as "monstrous acts" and "rude violations of the basic Leninist principles of the nationality policy of the Soviet state."

On November 14, 1989 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR accepted declaration "On the Recognition as Unlawful and Criminal The Repressive Acts Against Peoples Who Were Subjected to Forced Resettlement, and On Guaranteeing Their Rights", in which it condemned Stalin's deportation of peoples as the terrific felony, guaranteed that such violations of human rights won't be repeated and promised to restore the rights of repressed Soviet peoples.

Estonian trials and convictions

In 1995, after the re-establishment of Estonian independence, Riigikogu

Riigikogu

The Riigikogu is the unicameral parliament of Estonia. All important state-related questions pass through the Riigikogu...

, the parliament of independent Estonia, declared the deportations officially a crime against humanity

Crime against humanity

Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings...

, and a few perpetrators of the 1949 deportations, former officers of MGB, stood trial and have been convicted under Article 61-1 § 1 of the Criminal Code since then. The BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

noted in April 2009 that Estonia's claims of genocide

Genocide

Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...

are not widely accepted.

Johannes Klaassepp (born 1921), Vladimir Loginov (born 1924) and Vasily Beskov (born 1918) were sentenced to eight years' probation in 1999.

On July 30, 1999, Mikhail Neverovsky (born 1920) was sentenced to four years in prison.

On October 10, 2003, August Kolk (born 1924) and Pyotr Kisly (born 1921) were sentenced to eight years in prison with three years of probation. The case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights

European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...

, the defendants alleging the sentence was contrary to the prohibition of retroactive application of criminal laws, but on January 17, 2006 the application was declared obviously baseless.

On October 30, 2002, Yury Karpov got an eight-year suspended sentence.

On November 7, 2006, Vladimir Kask was also sentenced to eight years in prison with three years of probation.

Arnold Meri

Arnold Meri

Arnold Meri was an Soviet Red Army veteran of World War II and Hero of the Soviet Union who was charged with genocide for his role in the deportation of women and children to the inhospitable regions of the USSR. He was the cousin of former President of Estonia, Lennart Meri...

was on trial for his part in the deportations. He died in April 2009, before the end of the trial.

Russia's view

The Russian Federation, the only legal successor state to the Soviet Union, has never recognized the deportations as a crime and has not paid any compensation. Moscow has criticized the Baltic prosecutions, calling them revenge, not justice, and complained about the criminals' age. In March 2009, Memorial

Memorial (society)

Memorial is an international historical and civil rights society that operates in a number of post-Soviet states. It focuses on recording and publicising the Soviet Union's totalitarian past, but also monitors human rights in post-Soviet states....

concluded that the deportations were a crime against humanity, but stopped short of declaring them genocide or war crimes. In the opinion of Memorial, interpretation of events in 1949 as genocide is not based upon international law and is unfounded.

Investigative committee

The Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity

Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity

The Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity is the commission established by President of Estonia Lennart Meri in October 1998 to investigate crimes against humanity committed in Estonia or against its citizens during the Soviet and German occupation, such as...

was established by President Lennart Meri

Lennart Meri

Lennart Georg Meri was a writer, film director and statesman who served as the second President of Estonia from 1992 to 2001. Meri was a leader of the Estonian independence movement.-Early life:...

, who himself was a survivor of the 1941 deportation

June deportation

, in October 1998 to investigate crimes against humanity committed in Estonia or against Estonian citizens during the Soviet and Nazi occupation. The commission held its first session in Tallinn in January 1999. Renowned Finnish diplomat Max Jakobson

Max Jakobson

Max Jakobson is a retired Finnish Jewish diplomat and journalist.Jakobson began his career as a journalist. He worked at the BBC. From 1953 to 1974 he was employed by the Finnish foreign ministry, eventually acting as Finland's ambassador to the United Nations and Sweden...

was appointed to chair the commission. For neutrality purposes, there are no Estonian citizens among its members.

European Parliament

The European Parliament issued a resolution condemning crimes against humanity committed by all all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes on April 2, 2009. This includes the Soviet deportations from Estonia, which the European Court of Human Rights

European Court of Human Rights

has held to constitute crimes against humanity

European Court of Human Rights cases on Occupation of Baltic States

State continuity of the Baltic states describes the continuity of the Baltic states as legal entities under international law while under German occupation and Soviet rule from 1940 to 1991...

. Also, Parliament calls for the proclamation of August 23 as Europe-wide Remembrance Day for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.

June deportation of 1941

March deportation in 1949

Continuous deportation

Legal status

Soviet acknowledgment of Stalin's deportations

Estonian trials and convictions

Russia's view

Investigative committee

European Parliament

Further reading