Tuesday, August 21, 2007

How It's Our Fault

Fancy a bit of spin fun?

Lost among the crap in Russia the last week or so was the Litvinenko spinoff story involving Pablo Miller, an MI-6 agent and apparently a bit of an expert on Russia. The man had been implicated in a couple of arrests in the Russian cloak & dagger circles, including a certain Valeri Ojamäe, a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the FSB, who was later sentenced to seven years for treason. This particular recruitment took place in the late 90s in Tallinn, where Miller was working under diplomatic cover at the British embassy. According to FSB's statement, Miller was aided in his endavours by Kapo.

Now, what you have to understand is that Kaitsepolitsei is strictly an interior agency. Foreign intelligence is handled by the very quaintly named Teabetalitus, while Kapo is indeed responsible for keeping other countries' spies in Estonia in check.

Personally, I find the fact that the MI-6 station chief would enlist the help of the local counterintelligence for a job, actually quite flattering. Do you?

Meanwhile, the Russian government's newspaper of record - the one that publishes all new laws when they come into force - had an op-ed on the likely leads in the train bomb event. At the end of the article they mentioned that nearby Estonia was at the same time playing host to the Erna Raid, a war game recreating a WWII-time marine landing by assorted German forces. The Russian newspaper suggested that perhaps one of the international teams taking part in the raid got a bit carried away, crossed the border, and engaged in a bit of light sabotage to pass the time.

Cute.

2 comments:

space_maze said...

Oh yes .. those wacky Erna raid nazis.

I do love reading of Russian media getting upset about the Erna group getting recognition, as it's nazi glorification or something. Okay. An Estonian volunteer group in the Finnish army. A group of Estonians that wanted to fight the Soviet Union, but risked their lives in order to not do so in a German uniform. Commemorating them = glorifying nazism.

Whatever.

Giustino said...

The nuances of states are quite interesting. Like does your average Estonian 'Joosep' really give a crap about Russian interpretations of World War II and vice versa? How does this impact me buying a kohupiimakorp in downtown Tartu? Furthermore, how does it impact my daughter enjoying Moominmama? It really doesn't. The ERNA raid is just a cool excuse for some EÜS guys to get dressed up in camo and run around the woods with guns. The end. No story here. Please move along.

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