Ministry of Defense Undersecretary for Defense Readiness Susann Lilleväli said that the ministry wants every euro they are allocated to go toward enhancing Estonia's defense capabilities.

"And we can achieve this through capability development and through those individuals who must contribute daily to defense capabilities," Lilleväli explained.

In light of this, Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur signed an order according to which the ministry will support initiatives such as promoting conscription, introducing NATO, commemorating veterans of the Estonian Defense Forces (EDF) and the production of films about armed resistance.

"As of this year, support for repressed persons is no longer among these benefits," Lilleväli said. The support in question is an annual €90,000, which the Estonian Repressed Persons Assistance Fund (ERAF) has distributed to recipients in turn in the form of €150 health support benefits.

Assistance fund: Ministry is violating our agreement

According to ERAF director Peep Varju, the termination of the payment of this benefit is unlawful.

"We have been operating Seli Health Center together with the Ministry of Defense since the restoration of the Republic of Estonia," Varju said. "As a result, we have a contractual relationship of indefinite duration with the Defense Ministry by which a fixed amount is provided as compensation for the fact that the ministry decided from 2020 to convert Seli Health Center into a closed health facility intended exclusively for servicemembers."

The fund director recalled that repressed persons' associations first started working toward the establishment of the health center in 1989 already. Funding for it came primarily from Western partners.

In the mid-1990s, the Ministry of Defense took over the management of the center. The manor house in which the health center had been operating was returned to its rightful owner, the Estonian Red Cross, in 1995. A couple of years later, the ministry signed a 25-year contract for use with the Red Cross in which it promised to renovate the old building.

"And in 2006, the Ministry of Defense bought the manor house complex from the Estonian Red Cross for 8.6 million [Estonian] kroons," Lilleväli pointed out.

The early 2000s saw the first post-reindependence war veterans begin returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2015, wounded Ukrainian fighters have also been receiving care at Seli.

In 2020, the health center was converted into a unit of the EDF, and since then has not admitted repressed persons.

Ministry: New contract signed each year

In the letter of explanation accompanying the regulation issued by then-minister Jüri Luik, the Ministry of Defense stated that repressed persons would benefit from the change overall, as some 400 repressed persons a year received rehabilitative care at the center tucked away in the forests of Rapla County. After administrative costs, the €90,000 was enough for 560 recipients a year.

"The support will better serve its purpose, as it will become accessible to a larger share of the target group," the letter of explanation stated.

The current ministry undersecretary stressed that a new grant agreement was signed between the Defense Ministry and the Estonian Repressed Persons Assistance Fund each year, meaning there is actually no such open-ended contract.

"This support has thus far likewise been based on the minister's guidance," Lilleväli continued. "The minister's support objectives have since changed in accordance with the priorities of our ministry."

Varju acknowledged that no such contract of indefinite duration indeed exists on paper, but he does remember the informal agreements.

"These young officials don't know how four, five years ago we drew up this open-ended contract system together with the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Defense," he said. "And it should be absolutely mandatory for them."

Taking over support payments Defense Ministry's own idea

Dating back to 2019 is a letter from the Ministry of Defense's then-undersecretary Meelis Oidsalu in which the ministry proposed the provision of this support. This same letter revealed that the ERAF had also offered the opportunity to leave the obligation of supporting repressed persons to the Ministry of Justice to bear.

"The Defense Ministry weighed the proposal, but considers it vital to continue supporting the health of repressed persons from the defense budget," the letter stated. Also repeatedly emphasized in the letter was the fact that this support should be annual.

Varju recalled how well the fund and the Ministry of Defense worked together and how this had been facilitated by the ministry's social adviser at the time, Andres Siplane, whose name was also mentioned in the very same 2019 letter.

"Now with him no longer in office there and some others having left too, our relationship [with the ministry] has gotten totally abnormal," the fund director acknowledged.

Lilleväli suggested that this decision was actually rooted elsewhere. She recalled that two years ago, Russia's war in Ukraine escalated to a full-scale one.

"In the security situation we're in today, the Ministry of Defense has likewise very clearly directed its financial resources toward strengthening military capability," the undersecretary said.

Umbrella organization: Groups actually need more operating support

The Defense Ministry official emphasized nonetheless that this change would not leave repressed persons without any support.

"Each year, the [Estonian] state, via the Social Insurance Board (SKA), pays repressed persons or persons treated as a repressed person €292 in support," Lilleväli said, adding that the support amount had actually gone up by €60 last year. "And the Estonian Repressed Persons Assistance Fund additionally receives €256,000 in operating support via the Ministry of Justice."

Estonian Memento Union board chair Arnold Aljaste said that there is a greater need for operating grants specifically, which have remained stagnant for years despite rising prices.

"What these people need most is the opportunity to come together and do things together," Aljaste explained. "That is what is keeping us living and breathing. Because honestly, no one else even understands these people."

Fewer living repressed left by the year

In Estonia, among those classified as repressed persons are victims of genocide and deportees, as well as those punished by occupying regimes for their views and those exiled for failure to comply with military service ordered by occupying powers.

Also counted as repressed persons are those who were born in exile or while their parent was held unlawfully in a custodial institution.

Also included in the list from this year are children of repressed persons born within five years after their parent's release as well as those born later, but whose parents were unable to return to Estonia.

Counted among persons treated as a repressed person are those who participated in the armed fight for the restoration of the independence of the Estonian state beginning June 16, 1940, as well as those disabled while mobilized or conscripted as a member of the Soviet Armed Forces on condition that they themselves did not participate in the commission of acts of repression on Estonian territory.

Likewise counted among repressed persons are those who were subjected to radiation as a test subject in nuclear testing as well as those forcibly sent to an area of nuclear disaster, e.g. following the Chernobyl disaster.

According to Aljaste, repressed persons' groups have also given thought to the possibility of establishing their own retirement home. Over time, however, this idea remained unpursued.

"We're simply dying out," he acknowledged. "The need for this will vanish within a decade, because we lose more than ten percent of our members each year."

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