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Comment by engineer_22 | Hacker News Reader

For context, Estonia is a NATO member with significant Russian minority population

Russian-speaking*.

An interesting 2014 read on their inclusion re: national defence matters: https://icds.ee/wp-content/uploads/2014/Juhan_Kivirahk_-_Int...

Thanks for that!

They use the term ethnic Russian-speaking minorities, but from those minorities, it's ~89% Russians, ~8% Ukrainians and ~3% Belarusians. Not sure how much Pro-Russia sentiment there is among Ukrainians in Estonia but I'd be surprised if it's significant, so it's really "Russians" in 2023, even if it was broadly "Russian-speaking" in 2014.

At this point even having a Russian speaking population is potentially a liability regardless if they’re pro-Russian or not, since Russia will just spin whatever pro-Estonian or anti-Russian sentiment they say to be propaganda and Russia will just say they obviously need to be liberated so they’re able to express their support for Russia.

While only roughly 300,000 to 450,000 of 1.3 million of Estonians have ethnic ties to Russia, 73% are near Estonia’s border with Russia:

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/et-peop...

This YouTube provides an animated history of Estonian borders:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HBA0xDHZjko

that sure sounds like a question in dire need of a solution!

Only if you consider a 100 year old border a dire situation. Otherwise it would make way more sense economically for Russia to offer to resettle anyone interested no longer being Estonian instead of invading yet another sovereign country.

The present border is more like 80 year old, it was adjusted by the USSR (favouring Russia) after the Baltics were annexed in 1940.

However, it generally follows the pre-1917 borders of the Governorates of Estland and Livonia.

Map showing the annex your referencing:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=352476

I was unable to find a map overlaying pre-1917 borders and current borders.

For context: in USSR a person could not choose to move to live in another area, city or town. that was VERY difficult to do (was possible by marriage). Baltic countries and any close to border areas were especially controlled. But military, KGB and Communist party could appoint people to live in Baltic countries. those were "special" people - that proved their allegiance I can say. That is why they are a challenge to Estonia and other Baltic countries.

My understanding is the Estonian-Russian border as it is currently has been in place over 100 years, is this inaccurate?

Yes, but most Russians living in Estonia are post-1945 colonists or descendants of post-1945 colonists. I had imagined that the bulk of the population have a long and storied history in Estonia, but they don't. For example, no ethnic Estonians were allowed to return to Narva after the war, and was instead settled overwhelming mostly by Russian colonists. Narva is the third biggest city in Estonia, and 88% Russian. Pre-colonisation it was majority Estonian.

So the border is old but the ethnic borders are very new and based on very recent Russian colonisation.

Specific to Narva, Wikipedia has a breakdown of its historical affiliation and invasion, which date back 1000s of years:

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Narva

Of note, “The status of Narva was resolved in a July 1917 referendum, when the district population, at that time roughly equally divided between ethnic Russians and Estonians, voted to attach itself to the newly autonomous and soon to be independent republic of Estonia.”

This is not true. USSR existed for some 70 years and there were different times.

One could move quite freely by 1970-ish.

Except that you could not have permanent residence in Moscow and Leningrad.

For context: there were about 2-3% russians of the total population before WWII. Russia imported hundreds of thousands of them, with the explicit goal of replacing us local estonians. Unfortunately we now have this.. large minority and a part of it yearns for the time when they, the russians were the master race in the empire, everything could be done in their language and all others were below them.

And a former USSR country (although not willingly), and it shares a border with Russia, and it's the most remote NATO country. That said, if Russia does try anything, that will escalate the conflict and get NATO involved directly.

> a former USSR country (although not willingly)

this is a weird construct, we were not willingly part of soviet union, not not willingly former

I think the former (not willingly part of) is the intended reading, referrring to how the Baltics were forced into the Soviet fold, as opposed to how some other constituent republics joined. (Not to belittle the foul play of the creation of Soviet Union in general, either.)

I'm sure it is. It was a nit that most reasonable people would have known anyway. That said there are lots of bad faith actors around.

Estonia isn't even really considered a former SSR if I'm not mistaken. The period of time they were an SSR was mostly considered an illegal occupation, with the legitimate and recognized government being in exile. It's similar to calling Vienna, Austria a "former German city" because of the Anschluss.

austria joined willingly though.

Why add "if I'm not mistaken" when you can just link a source that confirms it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_Soviet_Socialist_Repu...

>a former USSR country (although not willingly)

Was the process of a joining the the USSR ever a willingly thing a country could choose to do or not to do?

AFAIK, the process was something more like Russian army invades your country and says "Congrats comrades, you are now liberated and part of the Soviet Union", rather than "Hey, would you like to have a democratic vote on joining our Soviet Union? No hard feelings if you don't want to, we can still be friends."

Interestingly, the USSR also held a referendum in the Baltics, but similar to Ukraine, it was after they invaded them and installed a puppet regime. The more you study history, the more you notice the same old tricks.

But was the referendum a fair and independent one, recognized and verified by the international community, or was it a sham referendum under threat of invasion, like the one in Austria for joining Nazi Germany, with a huge YES option in the middle, and a small NO option in the corner[1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Austrian_Anschluss_refere...

>But was the referendum a fair and independent one, recognized and verified by the international community

The same "international community" lead by a number of imperialist and colonialist countries still at the time maintaining protectorates and colonies all around the world whose local populations fought with huge toil for their independece?

That would be like the pot recognizing and verifying the validity of the kettle's blackness...

>The same "international community" lead by a number of imperialist and colonialist countries

OK, touché! True, most of Europe was a mess back then, with every country trying to establish an empire or defend itself from being invaded by one. There weren't many countries you could count on for an independent perspective. You had to be pro $SOME_EMPIRE and against $SOME_OTHER_EMPIRE. Unless you were Switzerland, there was no middle-ground option.

It's noteworthy that Anschluß had huge support in the 20s and 30s but the Entente forbade a unification of the newly shrunken Austria and Germany. Had the referendum happened earlier it might well have passed without such underhanded tactics.

The referendum in Crimea has been repeated by numerous Western organizations, including Gallup. [1] The results are nearly identical to what Russia said they were. Russia claimed a 97% "yes" with an 83% turnout rate. Gallup found that 82.8% of Crimeans agreed that the poll reflected the will of the people. It's two ways of saying, more or less, the exact same thing. The minority that opposed joining Russia chose to boycott the referendum, which is why it was 97% yes instead of ~83%. It's going to breakdown largely on ethnicity. Crimea is about 68% ethnic Russian, 13% ethnic Tatar (which is an autonomous republic within Russia), and then about 16% ethnic Ukrainian.

If you're looking to history - this event mirrors Kosovo, just with roles reversed. An ethnic minority, geographically isolated, within Serbia declare their independence. This is rejected by Russia and backed by the US who ensures forces are on the ready to "enforce" Kosovo's independence. The big difference is that the one remained relatively peaceful with no further largescale escalation. Ukraine, by contrast, was determined to retake Crimea and clearly had the full backing of the West. So, in many ways, this war started 9 years ago.

[1] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-a...

> If you're looking to history - this event mirrors Kosovo, just with roles reversed.

With the "minor" difference that Serbia was committing ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, while no such thing happened in Crimea.

> The big difference is that the one remained relatively peaceful with no further largescale escalation. Ukraine, by contrast, was determined to retake Crimea and clearly had the full backing of the West.

That's completely false. Crimean border has been more peaceful than Kosovo-Serbia border.

There's a whopping bit of selection bias in that Gallup poll; it polls only people still living in Crimea. Some of those are Russians who immigrated in, and there's a big missing chunk of people who left because of the invasion.

It should be unsurprising that the folks who stayed tend to be the folks who support the Russian annexation. The opinion of those who fled matters, too.

That's definitely a factor, though I'd also add across all ethnicities. Remember we're looking back with hindsight. Imagine you're an ethnic Russian in Crimea in 2014. "Your" president has just been overthrown, there's been intermittent ethnic conflict rising, and now your territory just declared their independence. Your future is not looking peaceful, to say the least.

We can look at past populations though. [1] Ethnic Ukrainians have never been more than a sizable minority in Crimea. Their peak was 26.5% in 1970. And indeed there was a sharp drop in Ukrainians from 2001 to 2014 (going from 24% to 16%), though that was following a downward trend from the 1989 to 2001 census as well.

So if we take a high end estimate and say the real number was 25% Ukrainian, you'd still likely end up with a poll result of ~74% instead of 83%.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Crimea

Now do ethnic Tatars, and account for the influx of Russian immigrants, and the numbers get quite a bit shakier.

I'm skeptical of any referendum of a large group of people that gets a 96.77% result. Mr. Rogers wouldn't poll that high.

From the article: "The U.S. made a big deal about the rights of ethnic minorities there known as the Tatars, which account for around 10% of the population. Of the 4% total that said they did not endorse Russia's annexation..."

It's unclear whether they're saying 96% of Tatar's supported Russia, or "only" 60%. I'd assume the latter for balance, but the writing sure does suggest the former. In either case it's the same story. The reason for the absurdly high poll numbers overall is that ethnic Ukrainians boycotted the referendum.

Same problem, looks like; they polled Tatars who didn't leave.

Referendum? Which one?

After they had forced their military bases on us, there were elections where only one candidate for each district was allowed and of course only candidates who supported the soviet union could be elected, it was a totally fake election. Then the new "parliament" voted to join the soviet union. So some stupid russians still say "but you joined voluntarily!!" and so on.

>Was the process of a joining the the USSR ever a willingly thing a country could choose to do or not to do?

It was a process with people both greatly against it and enthustiastically for it in the local populations, does that count?

It was the same in Ukraine as well (see Ukrainian-Soviet War of 1917–21), but there was more time to cover the traces and erase this from memory.

While I understand your intent, I think the wording isn't necessarily the best. You wouldn't refer to France as "a former Nazi state (although not willingly)". Similar to how you would say that France was occupied by the Nazi Germany, Estonia was occupied by the USSR.

> former USSR country (although not willingly)

history is history, but although they werent "willingly" part of ussr, the fact of history is that many estonians (and latvians) pretty willingly welcomed the nazis

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_occupation_of_Estonia...

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