Today, 🇪🇪 Internal Security Service shared their regular public annual review from the past year. These men and women do their covert work to keep 🇪🇪 safe and free. I think they are doing a great job. They have busted many russian spies over the years (some also in their own ranks). Remember a university professor arrested earlier this year for suspicion of action against 🇪🇪? Yep that was them. These annual reviews are always fascinating reading. Do take a look if you are into this. Links are in the thread. Here is my selection of some highlights. - Estonian border areas close to russia are a risk. Many people are not well off there, and are susceptible to russian influence activity. - Crossing border to russia is not advisable. russia harasses people who cross the border, right at the border control points. Interrogations, device searches, strip searches, lie detector tests, beatings. Mainly this is done to Ukrainians but some of these things also to Estonians and others. - russia pushed some migrants towards Estonia and uniformed russian border guards filmed this and it was later used in russian propaganda. - Some russian TV channels are banned in Estonia but some people still offer access to them illegally via satellite dishes or Internet. - russia hires local thugs for its hybrid operations. These people are poor and have life trouble, they don’t care about the russian ideology, they just want to get paid. They broke the car windows of Estonian interior minister and a media editor. More such crimes were planned but ISS prevented them. russian activity is becoming more open and brutal. - There were a bunch of russian prank calls to Western government leaders, including Kaja Kallas. russians hoped to get material for their propaganda or get some secrets. They got someone to pose as some African leader. They didn’t get anything valuable from the call with Kaja Kallas. Other such calls were prevented because Western politicians and governments shared this info. ISS advises all officials to do due diligence and not be fooled. - The head of russian church in Estonia was expelled, as he openly supported russian imperialism and aggression. - Besides russia, China is also a threat. At the end of 2023, an Estonian citizen went to jail for eight years for intelligence activity against Estonia for China. China takes interest in small countries because they have similar access to EU and NATO secrets as everyone else. - Access to state secrets was limited in some cases because people had problems with loans or drug abuse. - There were cyberattacks against utility providers. The main problem is systems without patches and security updates. - russian citizens, especially those who have come from russia recently, working in IT and having access to critical systems is a clear risk. - ISS participates in gathering evidence about russian war crimes in Ukraine for future investigations and prosecutions. @ErkoLaidinen1 filmed a russian war crime by chance, when russians shot a rocket at a vehicle and killed volunteer medical workers.
These annual reviews always have a section about history too. This year it is the 75th anniversary of Soviet russian mass deportations in the Baltic States and other countries, including Moldova. ISS presents evidence how some staff from Estonia did their job “well” and was transferred to Moldova for the same task a few months later, and they even took the document templates with them. There are several pages of chilling instructions on how to perform the mass crime most effectively.
@jaanus Thanks for the write-up. These things are important to be aware of not just to the services in question, but to everyone really.
@jaanus @KuldkeppMart ‼️There were a bunch of russian prank calls to Western government leaders, including Kaja Kallas. russians hoped to get material for their propaganda or get some secrets. They got someone to pose as some African leader… OMG — THAT SOUNDS LIKE OUR “PROJECT VERITAS” GANG