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https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/23/opinions/russia-neighbors-baltics-latvia-estonia-lithuania-ghitis/index.html

Opinion: Russia’s neighbors have a message for Putin
Opinion by Frida Ghitis
Updated 4:42 AM EDT, Wed August 23, 2023

A banner depicting the skull of Russian President Vladimir Putin is
pictured behind Ukrainian flags next to the Russian Embassy (R) on
December 8, 2022 in Riga, Latvia. (Photo by Gints Ivuskans / AFP) (Photo
by GINTS IVUSKANS/AFP via Getty Images)

Gints Ivuskans/AFP/Getty Images
Editor’s Note: Frida Ghitis, a former CNN producer and correspondent, is
a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a
contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World
Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own.
View more opinion on CNN.

Riga, Latvia
CNN
—
Just below the surface of life’s deceptively normal rhythms in countries
bordering Russia, the reality of what their giant neighbor is doing to
Ukraine is never far away.

Frida Ghitis
Frida Ghitis
And it’s not only because Russia’s border stands nearby, or because
Russia’s president has suggested that, just as Moscow had a right to
take over Ukraine, it could be justified in reclaiming the Baltic states
— Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — which spent decades under Soviet rule.

More than anything, the anxiety flows from the knowledge, from the
memory, that Moscow has sent its tanks into its neighbors’ territories
so many times over the years.

Now, chapters that they thought had been safely relegated to the pages
of history have taken on the menacing tint of reality.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky put it bluntly on Monday, when he
thanked Denmark for pledging to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets,
which the Netherlands also agreed to give Ukraine. “All of Russia’s
neighbors are under threat,” he said, “if Ukraine does not prevail.” He
will find few who disagree among those neighbors.

“If [Russian President Vladimir] Putin wins in Ukraine, they will come
here,” I was told in Latvia by Raivis, who works as a driver in Riga,
the capital, but asked me not to use his full name. He remembers
standing in the barricades as a teenager, joining the struggle for
independence three decades ago. “Now Putin wants to make the Soviet
Union again,” he said.

It’s a widely held belief. It’s why Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas,
one of the most eloquent proponents of the need to support Ukraine, says
Ukraine is Estonia’s own front line. “Ukraine,” she argues, “is fighting
for all of us.”

Anti - Russia and anti Russian war agression in Ukraine banners hanged
on the fence in front of Russian Federation embassy are seen in Tallinn,
Estonia on 31 July 2022 (Photo by Michal Fludra/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Anti-war banners hang on the fence in front of Russian Embassy in
Tallinn, Estonia, July 2022.
Michal Fludra/NurPhoto/Getty Images
Through the winding cobbled streets of old Tallinn, the Estonian
capital, the fairy tale gothic landscape suddenly turns jarring on Pikk
Tanav (or “Long Street” in English). Here, the exterior of Russia’s
embassy has become a showcase for the contempt Estonians feel for their
former master. Homemade signs demand that Russia “Stop killing
children,” in a long line of messages, photographs of Ukraine’s carnage,
splashes of bloodied hands and grotesque images of Putin.

The contempt is also on display in Riga, where authorities named the
previously unnamed street where Russia’s majestic Art Nouveau embassy
stands: “Ukraine Independence Street.” When they gaze at the window,
Russian diplomats have a direct view of a sea of Ukrainian flags, along
with signs calling Russia a “terrorist state,” among other choice words.

Latvia’s bravado is made possible by the safety of belonging to NATO.
And NATO’s vast response to Russia’s invasion — vast streams of armament
and unequivocal diplomatic backing to Ukraine — has made possible that
sense of normalcy, however superficial. “Seeing all the support that
Ukraine has received from NATO has calmed us down about an immediate
threat,” Janis Melnikovs, the Latvia director for the Catholic
broadcaster Radio Maria, told me, while sipping coffee on the edge of
Riga’s old town, as musicians nearby rehearsed for that evening’s
celebrations of the city’s 822nd anniversary.

But even now, Melnikovs says, with domestic economic concerns weighing
on minds a year-and-a-half into the war and many, especially the
elderly, straining under high levels of inflation that some link to
support for Ukraine and a growing military budget, there’s still
passionate support for Ukrainians here. The sentiment is visible across
the region, where bright yellow and blue Ukrainian flags fly from
building after building.

It’s also visible in Finland, with its 800-mile border with Russia —
where the Kremlin also launched an invasion from 1939 to 1940, and ended
up keeping a piece of territory. After decades of seeking safety in
non-alignment, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine convinced Helsinki that
neutrality offered no protection, so Finland, too, joined NATO in April.

Some 18 months after Russian forces tried to take Kyiv, signs at
Helsinki’s airport still offer “Information for People Fleeing Ukraine.”
And high above the central railway station still flies Ukraine’s
familiar flag.

But it is the tiny Baltic states where the trauma of Stalin’s incursions
and the subsequent subjugation to the Kremlin are still raw.

Viru Centre in Tallinn. (Photo by: FOCUS/Toomas Tuul/Universal Images
Group via Getty Images)
The Viru Hotel in Tallinn was once used by KGB agents. Now tourists can
tour the former offices frozen in time.
Toomas Tuul/Focus/Universal Images Group Editorial/Getty Images
During Soviet times, the top floor of Tallinn’s Hotel Viru was
off-limits to all but the KGB agents who used it to spy on foreign
guests and local staff. Fleeing in 1991, agents left behind surveillance
equipment, transmitters and microphones hidden in ashtrays and lamps.

For years, Margit Raud has been guiding tours of the frozen-in-time
offices. Until recently, she said, everyone viewed them as a historic
curiosity, a travesty. Now, she says, since Russia invaded Ukraine, it
has all taken on a new seriousness.

Like most families in the Baltics, Margit has stories. Her grandmother
was imprisoned and deported by the Stalinist regime for a dozen years
over a trivial violation; her mother raised without her. Years later,
Margit joined the revolution to free Estonia.

Latvia, too, has its own grim reminder of the KGB’s sinister hand. The
so-called Corner House at Riga’s Brivibas Street 61, may seem another in
Riga’s spectacular collection of ornate buildings. But in sharp contrast
to their beauty, this one is a repository of repression and brutality.
It is here that those suspected of “counterrevolutionary activity” —
which might include writing poetry or not reporting purportedly
counterrevolutionary activities by their neighbors, co-workers, friends
and relatives — were brought in for interrogation, torture and even
execution.

As in Estonia, Russia’s 21st century assault on Ukraine brought echoes
of Russia’s 20th century subjugation of Latvia.

The Baltics take little comfort in having been proven right with their
predictions, and they are offering much more than moral support and flag
waving.

Frida Ghitis

For years, Baltic leaders tried to warn their NATO allies that Russia
posed a threat. As far back as 2007, Estonia became one of the first
countries targeted by a massive cyberattack. Authorities there had
removed a 1947 monument honoring the Soviet Army as World War II
liberators of Tallinn. The decision sparked protests by Russian
speakers, and before long, Estonia’s internet became mysteriously paralyzed.

Government offices, banks, newspapers, everything ground to a halt, some
of it for weeks, after an attack from IP addresses based in Russia. It
was a preview of a new type of warfare. No definitive culprit has been
found, but even though Russia denies involvement, the Kremlin’s
subsequent hacking incidents undercut those denials.

Many here viewed the crisis as a warning from the Kremlin. And when
Russian forces entered the Republic of Georgia in 2008, and later
invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, they
sounded the alarm. But not everyone heeded their warnings.

The Baltics take little comfort in having been proven right with their
predictions, and they are offering much more than moral support and flag
waving.

The top three contributors to Ukraine’s defense since Russia invaded, as
a percentage of GDP, are Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Proportionally,
Estonia’s aid is four times higher than the US’s. In addition, they’re
sharply boosting their own defense spending

As the war drags on, the cost is taking its toll. There have been
tensions with the large Russian-speaking minority. Language is a major
issue across former Soviet territories, since the Soviets deliberately
relocated hundreds of thousands of Russian speakers to dilute national
identities, and Putin has exploited tensions, using them to acquire
influence and justify military interventions.