OFFICIAL VOWS TO PREVENT VANDALISM OF RUSSIAN SITES BEYOND ITS BORDERS. Deputy Defense Minister General Vladimir Isakov said on November 14 that the Defense Ministry has taken unspecified "additional measures" to prevent acts of "vandalism" at Russian military cemeteries abroad, Interfax reported.
He added that his ministry and the Interior Ministry have sent proposals to President Putin aimed at "preventing developments similar to the ones in Estonia [in the spring], which constituted an act of state vandalism aimed at wiping out the memory of the glorious Soviet Army that freed the world from the Nazi plague." It is not clear how Isakov wants Russia to prevent such developments outside its borders. In the spring, the pro-Putin youth group Nashi organized a blockade of the Estonian Embassy in Moscow after Estonia moved a Soviet-era World War II monument from central Tallinn to a military cemetery.
At the same time, Estonia was the target of a massive cyber-attack, which Russia is widely suspected of orchestrating, although it denies any involvement. Russia recently imposed economic restrictions on Estonia (see "RFE/RL Newsline," June 7, July 17 and 24, and August 8, 2007). PM
