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How the Ukrainian diaspora in Estonia helps fend off Russia’s hybrid war

byOlena Makarenko

05/10/2017

7 minute read

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How the Ukrainian diaspora in Estonia helps fend off Russia’s hybrid war

During the years after the Euromaidan Revolution, a powerful volunteer movement formed in Ukraine. Volunteers helped the army, the reform process, and fight against corruption, and took part in other important changes. However, there are volunteer movements not only within the country. The Ukrainian diaspora has also been very active during these years. Euromaidan Press found out how the life of Ukrainian community in Estonia has been affected by the war in Donbas and what drives Ukrainians in Estonia to help their motherland. For that, we talked to Volodymyr Palamar, the Head of the Association of Ukrainian organizations in Estonia.

Volodymyr Palamar, the Head of the Association of Ukrainian organizations in Estonia

There are 28,000 Ukrainians in Estonia. 4,000 out of them are citizens of Ukraine. The rest have other passports.

Ukrainian organizations on the map of Estonia

Palamar moved to Estonia to study after graduating from school in Ukraine. In Tallinn, he owns a business. As a volunteer, he promotes Ukrainian culture in Estonia. The Association he heads is the coordinating organization for Ukrainian communities in Estonia.

“We direct the activities of such organizations for maintaining the identity, the language, and the culture which already became a part of Estonian culture,” says Palamar.

Now he considers Estonia as his second motherland, as he spent the biggest part of his life there and it became the motherland for his children. Still, supporting Ukraine is among Plamar's priorities.

He took us to Ukrainian weekend school in Tallinn. It is full of Ukrainian symbols, children's works, cups, and medals won by the teams of Ukrainian kids at different kinds of competitions. He shows every corner in of the small premises with pride – takes paintings from the boxes, explains the maps and pictures on the walls.

There are other Ukrainian weekend schools in different cities of Estonia. The Association coordinates 6 of them. Children there learn the Ukrainian language and culture. There are also two classes with the optional learning of Ukrainian language in the state gymnasiums.

The Association receives some support from Estonian Ministry of Education – for the school’s retention, taxes, salaries for teachers and some materials.

Switching the focus after breakout of Donbas war

Just before the war in Ukraine broke out, the Ukrainian community in Estonia was working on establishing a monument to Taras Shevchenko, a 19th-century Ukrainian poet who is a symbol of Ukraine and its fight for independence.

“We found out that he was traveling from Saint-Petersburg to Stockholm, but became ill and was taken from the ship with a fever. He was treated in Tallinn and during this period started to write his famous poem Hamaliya. So there was an Embassy initiative to create a monument,” tells Palamar.

As Tallinn is a historical city it is not that easy to receive a permission for establishing a monument there. However, Ukrainian activists went through all the bureaucratic procedures. The plan was approved. A memorial stone has been taken from Ukraine and established on a crowded place in Tallinn.

The activists invited a Ukrainian artist to create the monument and started to collect money for it. The concept foresaw that there will be a shadow of Shevchenko in a boulder. The Head of the Association explains its meaning:

“The idea was that we are not invaders. It means that such a famous person of the world who was a Ukrainian, was in this country, left a shadow here, and went home.”

In the middle of the process, establishing the monument was stuck because of the lack of funds. The money collected by the activists went for work of a sculptor, the materials, and then for the soldiers at the front line of Ukraine, in particularly, for the volunteer battalions. That is how the events in Ukraine corrected the plans of the diaspora.

Another aspect of the life of Ukrainians in Estonia after the beginning of the war is that there is often misunderstanding between them and Russians, who make up about 25% of Estonian population. Talking about himself, Palamar says when he starts to describe what has happened in eastern Ukraine, some people understand him:

“I give examples of killings of innocent people, military hardware which was involved in this war, horrible traps for the Ukrainian army.” He stopped communicating with those who don’t understand.

Helping Ukraine

Palamar says that he tries to not dive deep into political events. In terms of helping Ukraine, he and his community friends chose the direction of medicine.

Palamar cooperates with Ukrainian initiatives, for example Estonian organization Vaba Ukraina. Also he told us about the initiative of Estonian Ministry of Defense and government on treating wounded. To date 64 wounded have been treated there.

Palamar and his colleagues care about those whom they sent help and try to find out where they are and what else they need.

Once, his friend visiting Kyiv told him that her media colleagues work in the warzone, but don’t have helmets. Ukrainians in Estonia collected helmets, wrote down their phone numbers on them, and sent them to Ukraine. The helmets were used by soldiers as well.

“One of them has ended up near Debalteseve, then in Donersk, and in some other places. The guys wanted to figure out where this helmet came from – nobody who wore it was even injured. So they called us. For us it was very emotional. We did not know whether we should cheer or to be sad.”

The most recent support for Ukraine from Estonian volunteers was a dentist chair for surgery - there are a lot of soldiers who come back from war with face injuries.

Palamar becomes modest when talking about their help, but says that not helping is not an option:

“We do not ask ourselves what the state should do for us. We ask what did I do for the state. It is easier to live when you do something, something good for someone. Also we understand that there are complicated processes of the state’s management, so we do not ask anything from the state.”

He also expresses his respect for all the other volunteers inside and outside Ukraine:

“I am not sure that other nations would do the same for their states. They took a heavy burden from the state and gave it an opportunity to reboot – to give an opportunity to its army and other institutions to become as they should be.”

Still, he has a small request:

“If somebody can help us with modern textbooks of the Ukrainian language, history, we will be very glad. As we understand that the language use changes. Another thing we need is banduras for our school band. So far, we can't afford it.”

From time to time, Volodymyr Palamar visits Ukraine. He is disappointed that people in the country are very into politics. However, he also emphasizes that the steps Ukraine made during the last 3 years are visible.

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February 12: ”Normandy Four” negotiations concluded in Minsk with a disappointing result for Ukraine

February 12 – "Normandy Four" negotiations concluded in Minsk with a disappointing result for Ukraine. Putin did not give in on a single point – there will be no withdrawal of Russian troops (they are, of course, nowhere close to Ukraine), no immediate resumption of control over the border, no reinstatement of sovereignty over occupied Crimea or Donbas. There are, however, the obligations on behalf of Ukraine to service social needs of separatists, legalize their armed gangs and hold fake elections under their watchful eye. The situation looks a lot like the surrender of Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia) to Hitler.

February 12 – Total financial assistance to Ukraine from the IMF and other organizations could amount to 40 billion dollars over 4 years, – said IMF's Managing Director Christine Lagarde.

February 12 – Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations has announced the preparations for the 14th so-called humanitarian aid convoy destined for Donbas – more weapons will be transported, no doubt.

February 12 – Russia has transferred another lot of military equipment and artillery to the territory of Ukraine, controlled by militants – approximately 50 tanks, 40 "Grad", "Uragan" and "Smerch" multiple rocket launch systems and 40 armored vehicles crossed Russian-Ukrainian border at border crossing point Izvaryne, – said NSDC spokesman Andriy Lysenko.

February 12 – The transfer of the amphibious assault ship "Vladivostok" (Mistral-class) to Russia could begin as early as next week.

February 12 – EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Federica Mogherini does not expect sanctions against Russia to be discussed during the summit of EU member-states leaders to be held on Thursday.

February 12 – Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Lamberto Zannier hassaid that at present it is impossible to determine whether the militants in Donbas are also soldiers of the regular Russian army. OSCE has completely exhausted itself as a security-oriented organization.

February 12 – Agreements reached in Minsk during the meeting of the leaders of the countries of the "Normandy quartet" are absolutely weak. This was stated by the President of Lithuania, Dalia Grybaskaite, to journalists in Brussels before the EU Summit. "The fundamental part of the resolution is the control of the borders. It was not agreed upon and not resolved," she noted. "This means that the border is open for crossing by whatever soldiers and whatever artillery," remarked Grybaskaite. "This means that the resolution is totally weak," emphasized the President of Lithuania. She is also not very optimistic about the agreements on the cease-fire.

"Five months ago we already had one agreement about a cease-fire which was not implemented. Let's see what happens with this one," underlined Grybaskaite. "We will observe in the next few days how at least these partial agreements will be implemented," she added.

War is hell! (photo report from occupied Vuhlehirsk)

Russia lies... great start to Minsk agreement (Savchenko cannot be released!!)

Timothy Ash

Ukraine – deal thoughts

I guess with hindsight, a deal was always going to be done. Merkel was not going to get on a flight to Minsk, after Kyiv, Moscow, and Berlin, and not get something. And Putin needed to try and rebuild some bridges with Merkel, after seemingly upsetting her at Brisbane. Merkel is probably the honest broker in all this. She really feels for the Ukrainian position, but understands the real threat from Russia – she reads Putin better than any other Western leader, and cannot be bought. But it is Bismark-style real politik for Merkel, and she was desperate to stop the fighting – almost at any cost, which is entirely understandable. Hollande will likely get his aircraft carriers delivered, and sees all this as offering the hope of ressurection in terms of his presidency at home – a global leader, strutting the international stage and making Cameron, et al look like poodles, or rather a bulldog with no teeth. Putin gets his aircraft carriers, which will no doubt have a nice shiny berth now awaiting in Sebastopol. Putin also fended off near term threats of sanctions from the West, and can sell himself to allies in Europe (there are many) as a peacemaker – again heading off further sanctions threats. He has also not agreed to very much, as I don't think his signature is on the document, so if it fails (and it likely will) he can blame others. He has also headed off the threat of the US arming Ukraine – and therein he is in cahoots with Obama himself, who will see this deal as being useful in fending off calls from the DC consensus (including within his own administration) now to arm Ukraine – and can return to his own "splendid isolation" or "strategic patience" as it is now called stateside. That's a nice term for doing as little as possible. Poroshenko gets his IMF programme, and can try and roll out reforms attached to this to try and assure the supporters of Maydan that this team is really the Real Deal in terms of the reforms they so desire. Note the IMF press release was timed for 10am, just as news of the Minsk deal broke – so my sense is that someone was telling the Ukrainians that an IMF deal was contingent on a Minsk ceasefire deal. No ceasefire – no IMF deal. And the IMF gets to roll out its new programme, which it has been working on for months. Poroshenko probably also thinks that the ceasefire will buy time for Ukraine to regroup, rearm against the clear and present danger of further Russian intervention. But will it all stick/last? I just do not think so, as I still fail to see from this deal what is different to Minsk I in terms of delivery on Russian strategic objectives in Ukraine. Minsk I clearly did not deliver for Russia, hence that ceasefire did not last long, so let's see what is really different this time around. The issues of real autonomy/federalism, and border control don't appear to be properly addressed in this document. Constitutional reform towards the Russian agenda will be impossible for Poroshenko to deliver. And finally and fundamentally why I do not think that the status quo is sustainable – one year ago Russia felt the need to annex Crimea, and intervene in eastern Ukraine. But one year ago Ukraine was no threat to Russia as a) it was non aligned; b) popular support for Nato membership was low single digits, and there was little support in parliament or amongst political elites to drive Ukraine NATO membership. C) the west really did not want Ukraine in NATO as they saw this as a red rag to the Russian bull, and as events have proved could not defend Ukraine under NATO's TOR; c) the Ukrainian military had limited fighting capability as was proven in the early days of the conflict, but subsequently changed; d) the govt in Kyiv was weak and disarray and the Ukrainian economy on the brink of collapse; e) and as events have proven Russia had de facto control of Crimea via the stationing of 26,000 troops and the long term BSF agreement. And f) and finally Ukrainians were not anti-russian or even particularly anti-Putin. If Moscow was not a real threat a year ago, but Moscow felt compelled to intervene, look at the risk from a Russian perspective now from Ukraine – a) Ukraine is no longer non aligned. B) it now wants to join NATO and opinion polls now show majority support for this. C) Ukraine is rebuilding military capability and the military doctrine is now against the threat from Russia; d) Ukraine has a reform admin in Kyiv, which has a real chance of succeeding now with imf support. It can offer a rival and successful model of development to Putin's power vertical and sovereign democracy. E) Opinion polls show strong ukrainian opposition/distaste for the Putin regime. So, net-net the above still suggests the risk of further future Russian intervention in Ukraine.

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