As reported by ERR News, security footage taken just after 5 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, July 22, revealed Valge aiding a man in attaching the flag of the Estonian SSR to a wall, which also displays a bas-relief of Juhan Smuul (1922-1971), of the Writers' House (Kirjanike maja) on Harju 1, in Tallinn's Old Town,

Valge says that while the stunt was not his idea and has nothing to do with his party, he participated in its planning from the outset; when the story first broke the MP had said he merely aided the individual, who he said was unknown to him, after the man had approached him in the street asking for help.

Valge said that he gave this other version of events to a Delfi journalist who contacted him, who found the explanation amusing and, Valge said, understood that the prank had been intentional and not incidental.

"This performance was done in order to gain the attention of the media, but in this case it is not practical to explain everything right away," Valge went on, noting that he made no attempt to conceal himself from the security camera and in fact appeared before it "deliberately."

Juhan Smuul was not only a writer and chair of the Estonian Writers' Union, but also a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia, a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR, and secretary of the board of the Union of Soviet Writers. He also stands charged with being involved in the 1949 deportation of Estonians, by the Soviet authorities.

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