Centerfield

Just Stupid Nationalism, or Russians Casting Wistfully Acquisitive Eyes at Neighbors?

Good thing Estonia's in NATO. Non-kowtowing to ethnic minorities has long been an excuse for invasions.

Acually, treatment of WWII has long been an interesting thing to look at in Russia. If Japan has its thing about the comfort women, the USSR had a positive cult about WWII war deaths. The leadership loved to remind people of these deaths, er, liberating Europe.

Now, it's true that tens of millions of Soviet soldiers died in WWII, but I'd say that had as much to do with Stalin's interest in death as anything else. He was always coming up with excuses to kill more. He'd insist that an objective be reached by an unreasonable date, and would kill generals (and, of course, by implication, soldiers under the resulting bloody generalship) who failed. He shot any Soviet soldiers taken prisoner and later repatriated. Unlike the democratic Allies, there is no evidence of him caring about reducing Soviet war deaths, just about winning the war with as much turf under his thumb as possible. It's no surprise that the bloodiest front in history was between two tyrants both interested in maximizing deaths, still unexcelled sixty years later, despite the continued advances of warfare since then.

One interesting measure of Russian leadership is their attitude toward these WWII deaths. Yeltsin's Russia was curious and horrified. Putin's is unconditionally proud of them again. Like his other predecessors, Putin likes to use them to try and keep public opinion hot and bothered and on his side.

One action goes rather beyond this. Estonia has been subject to cyberattack, that has made its life somewhat harder. Why the attack, one wonders? Is Russia just trying to see how far something that probably won't provoke armed retaliation can damage Estonia? Is he stupid enough to hope that this kind of intimidation can convince Estonia to rejoin the Russian Empire?