Putin reportedly snatches Estonian official from Estonian territory, continues blatant lies about Russian troops in Ukraine

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Posted By: James Rowles September 5, 2014

As the ceasefire agreed at Minsk seems to go into effect in the eastern Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has apparently ordered the kidnapping of an Estonia security official on Estonian territory in order to remind NATO and the EU that he is still to be feared, and that the EU and the U.S. should be careful not to anger him by adopting really harsh sanctions in the next few days.

The ceasefire he has just succeeded in imposing on Petro Poroshenko as the result of unambiguous military action inside the Ukraine by Russian troops represents a big victory for Putin, giving him “facts on the ground” he can use to thwart Ukraine’s desire to join the European Union and the risk that the country might also join NATO. In the last week, Ukraine did in fact take formal steps that would open the path to its joining NATO should the Alliance udltimately accept its application.

Vladimir Putin continues to baldly lie about Russia’s military invasion of the eastern Ukraine, just as he lied about Russia’s invasion of the Crimea.

The West should not give any credence to anything he says, or trust any promises whatsoever that he might make.

Evidence that Russian troops have invaded the eastern Ukraine is incontovertible. The demands of Russian human rights organizations, reported in the article cited below, offers one more piece of telling evidence.

Julia Smirnova of Die Welt has reported facts that prove Russian troops have invaded and are fighting in the Ukraine, and have died there.

Unlike her colleagues at most Western media, who have learned to never report disputed facts but rather report only on competing versions of events, Smirnova reports the facts as they are knowable, citing evidence, and links them together to draw factual conclusions. Her reporting has been among the best and the most timely of all of the reporting on Russia’s aggression in the Ukraine, from the seizure of the Crimea in February to its ongoing violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence up until today.

See

(1) Louis Kacngsepp and Juhana Rossi (Talinn, Estonia), “Eestonia Says Officer Abducted Near Russian Border; Security Service Accuses Individuals Coming From Russia; Moscow Says Arrest Occurred in Russia, Wall Street Journal, online.wsj.com/articles/estonian-officer-abducted-near-border-with-russia-1409928475″>Septmener 5, 2014 (5:12 p.m. ET).

TALLINN, Estonia—The apparent abduction and detention of an Estonian security officer raised tensions between Estonia and Russia just two days after President Barack Obama came to the country and vowed to defend it as a NATO member.

Estonia’s Internal Security Service, known as KAPO, said its officer Eston Kohver was “illegally detained” at gunpoint early Friday while on duty in southeastern Estonia. It said his abductors had come from Russia and had jammed radio communications and used a smoke grenade in the incident.
…
The director general of KAPO, Arnold Sinisalu, told journalists in the Estonian capital that there were footprints coming from Russia and going back to Russia at the crime scene. He said there hadn’t been any similar incidents since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

KAPO spokesman Harrys Puusepp said Estonian and Russian border guards had written a joint account of the incident stating that the border was violated from Russia to Estonia, “not vice versa,” and that “in the course of this border violation, a citizen of the Estonian Republic went missing.”

(2) Agence-France Presse (Moscow), “Thousands of Russian soldiers sent to Ukraine, say rights groups; Moscow denies deploying regular troops, but reports suggest up to 15,000 soldiers have been sent to assist separatists since July, The Guardia, September 1, 2014 (10:41 a.m. EDT).

(3) “Julia Smirnova of Die Welt lays out proof that Russian regular troops are fighting in the eastern Ukraine,” The Trenchant Observer, August 26, 2014.

The Trenchant Observer

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About the Author

James Rowles
"The Trenchant Observer" is edited and published by James Rowles (aka "The Observer"), an author and international lawyer who has taught International Law, Human Rights, and Comparative Law at major U.S. universities, including Harvard, Brandeis, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Kansas. Dr. Rowles is a former staff attorney at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States OAS), in Wasington, D.C., , where he was in charge of Brazil, Haiti, Mexico and the United States, and also worked on complaints from and reports on other countries including Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. As an international development expert, he has worked on Rule of Law, Human Rights, and Judicial Reform in a number of countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and the Russian Federation. In the private sector, Dr. Rowles has worked as an international attorney for a leading national law firm and major global companies, on joint ventures and other matters in a number of countries in Europe (including Russia and the Ukraine), throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, and in Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam, China and Japan. The Trenchant Observer blog provides an unfiltered international perspective for news and opinion on current events, in their historical context, drawing on a daily review of leading German, French, Spanish and English newspapers as well as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and other American newspapers, and on sources in other countries relevant to issues being analyzed. Dr. Rowles speaks fluent English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish, and also knows other languages. He holds an S.J.D. or Doctor of Juridical Science in International Law from Harvard University, and a Doctor of Law (J.D.) and a Master of the Science of Law (J.S.M.=LL.M.), from Stanford University. As an undergraduate, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree, also from Stanford, where he graduated “With Great Distinction” (summa cum laude) and received the James Birdsall Weter Prize for the best Senior Honors Thesis in History. In addition to having taught as a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, Dr. Rowles has been a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs (CFIA). His fellowships include a Stanford Postdoctoral Fellowship in Law and Development, the Rómulo Gallegos Fellowship in International Human Rights awarded by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and a Harvard MacArthur Fellowship in International Peace and Security. Beyond his articles in The Trenchant Observer, he is the author of two books and numerous scholarly articles on subjects of international and comparative law. Currently he is working on a manuscript drawing on some the best articles that have appeared in the blog.

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