Russian Embassy to Krištafovitš: You'd have been soap without Soviet forces
Activist Jevgeni Krištafovitš' reaction to his inclusion on the Russian Embassy in Tallinn-compiled blacklist of "Russophobes" led to a sharp exchange between Krištafovitš and the embassy which culminated in the Russian Embassy telling Krištafovitš that if it weren't for the Soviet forces, he would have likely been made into soap.
"If it weren't for the Soviet forces, at best you would have been a lampshade, but at worst, soap," read the Russian Embassy's reply to Krištafovitš, which the activist then posted to social media on Monday.
"The argument was in connection with that list of Russophobes," Krištafovitš told ERR, describing the argument he had with the embassy. "I asked whether it would be possible to get a Russophobes' certificate somewhere. They replied rather impolitely that it wasn't. My reaction to that was that that was too bad. That if the Third Reich's Ambassador to Moscow had in the 1930s given someone a certificate stating that citizen so-and-so was a Naziphobe and Adolf Hitler's personal enemy, such a certificate would have a very interesting historical value by now. And this was followed by such an even more impolite comment."
Considering the Russian Embassy's image, this all should be taken with irony, Krištafovitš said. "These most recent steps, including the Russophobes list and then all these other comments, can't even be taken any other way," he added.
Politicians, journalists, activists on Russian blacklist
On 6 June, Moscow issued a Russian Embassy in Tallinn-compiled list of Estonian citizens barred from entry to the Russian Federation.
Among those who personally confirmed they were included on the list were former President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Postimees journalist Ainar Ruussaar and editor-in-chief of Estonian foreign policy magazine Diplomaatia Erkki Bahovski, Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) MP Henn Põlluaas and Free Party Chairman Andres Herkel, former journalist Urmas Reitelmann (EKRE), historian Igor Kopõtin, former Free Party member Sergei Metlev, who currently works at the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory, activist Jevgeni Kristafovitš, international law professor Evhen Tsybulenko, political scientist Toomas Alatalu, Estonian Foreign Policy Institute director Kristi Raik, and International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) research fellows Kalev Stoicescu and Ivo Juurvee and executive director Dmitri Teperik.
The 6 June list of names was announced on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website and came in direct response to Estonia's own Magnitsky List of Russian citizens forbidden entry into Estonia, which was published in March.
Editor: Aili Vahtla