"Russian response to Japan should be severe:" just as severe as Russia's response to the Baltics' assertion that the Red Army did not liberate them, but merely replaced one foreign despotic occupation with another one? Russia seems to believe that if it huffs and puffs and blusters enough, that this actually historical realities.It changes nothing about the past, but it does make Russia look strange in the present.

Sorry Japan, but if you didn't decide to go to war; you wouldn't have lost them. If it is taken in war it is fair game. 60 years ago you were the occupyers and now you want to play nice.

Let's not be too severe, we don't want to be like the US and nuke them! I am sure we can talk about it, we need to leave the invasions and bombing to the west, and carry on positively building international ties, in a pragmatic and mutually beneficial way as we have been doing.

I agree that the Red Army didn't liberate Baltic states as it is well known all these states were pro-German and pro-SS. A tremendous number of Baltic individuals served willingly in Hitler military and indeed a large number of them in SS troops. Therefore, Baltic states were among those that actually lost the WWII and, consequently, Russians were "occupying force" for them. Even in the present time many Balts use to exercise the Hitler salutation in public, and to glorify some other aspects of Nazism. It seems like Balts didn't learn the lesson: If they continue to misconduct, for example to allow NATO crafts to threaten Russia from their territory, or to terrorize native Russians there, no one is to have any doubts that a mere "occupation" will look like some "happy days" in comparison with what is really be taking place. Watch on your steps, Balts.

Vladimir, the list of factual errors in your short post is long. They include: (1) The Baltics “were pro-German and pro-SS.” They were not. They were anti-Soviet. The pro-German bit is a Soviet propaganda invention to try to discredit the Baltics’ resistance to Soviet invasion and occupation. (2) “A tremendous number of Baltic individuals served willingly in Hitler’s military”. No. Some were conscripted, some joined voluntarily, but not served willingly. They would have far rather served within their own national armies, or more to the point, not fought at all, seeing as they strove mightily to remain neutral in the years leading up to WW2. But Soviet Russia invaded them anyway, dismantled their own military forces and begun unspeakable mass crimes against their civilian populations. When German forces arrived a little over a year later to begin their occupation, they were at first viewed as some kind of liberators, as no one could imagine anything worse than the savagery of the Soviet occupation that they replaced. While Germany was no friend of the Baltics and killed many, it reserved its greatest savagery for people other ethnicities. Towards the end of the war when the Red Army was on its way back to resume its crimes of 1940-41, many locals served within German forces not for the war aims of the maniac in Berlin, but because that was the only military available that was providing any sort of real resistance to Russia. It was hoped that the Baltic military contribution might keep the Red Army from re-invading their countries before the War ended. However, this hope proved futile. The Soviets did return, and their oppression and mass crimes against humanity with them. (3) “The Baltic States were amongst those who lost WWII.” No matter who would win the war, the Baltics would lose, and they knew it. If the Allies won, they would be under Russian occupation and oppression; if the Nazis won, they would be under German occupation and oppression. For the Baltics, WWII ended only in August 1991 when the Soviets left and their independent pre-War republics were restored. (4) “Even in the present time many Balts use to exercise the Hitler salutation in public, and to glorify some other aspects of Nazism.” I don’t know of any example of either, and I have been to the Baltics on numerous occasions. I do know of many untruthful Russian propaganda beat-ups on the matter, though. (5) “The Baltics allow NATO craft to threaten Russia from their territory.” There are no NATO forces based in the Baltics, but there are about four or five NATO jet fighters based in Lithuania which regularly patrol Baltic airspace. Before their deployment there several years ago, Russian aircraft violated Baltic air space on almost a monthly basis – one Russian bomber even crashed in Lithuania, remember? Since the NATO deployment, these Russian violations have ended. So there have been military threats in the area all right, but they have not come from the quarter that Vladimir suggests. (6) “Balts terrorize native Russians.” Absolute nonsense. All Soviet-era Russians were granted automatic citizenship in Lithuania, and citizenship by naturalization is promoted in Latvia and Estonia. Hundreds of thousands have been granted citizenship. Russians in Estonia enjoy a significantly higher standard of living than in Russia itself. In the mid 1990s the Russian border town of Ivangarod petitioned Moscow for permission to secede to Estonia (permission was not granted) and hundreds of thousands of Russian tourists visit the Baltics each year. Guess they all enjoy being terrorized so much. (7) “Watch your steps, Balts.” Why? Which of their steps are blameworthy? Or is the mere fact all by itself a crime that the Baltic countries want to be free of Russian control and influence and will not yield to Russian chauvinism?

Marzipan6: It is not German Nazism that you are now relying on against "Russian threat", but it is NATO. Not Goering Luftwaffe, but some NATO jet fighters ("peaceful", I presume) maintaining their patrols just up to the Russian border. To say it bluntly - It's much too evident that it is a threat to Russia and Balts are cheerfully taking a part in that threatening. By choosing the US for patron, Balts are voluntarily putting themselves in a position of a hostage of the US war adventurousness. As some serious analysts forecast, at some point there might be a war to break out between US and Russia, so in that case what do you think how Russia will act against Balts? I can agree with you that communism was an evil doctrine and I believe that Baltic nations probably suffered from it. But, may I remind you that Russians suffered even more from communism during the Soviet times. Communism was surely not an invention of religious, orthodox, Russian people. Notwithstanding, I sense that this has a little effect on your reasoning for your russophobicness probably sees all Soviets as Russians, and that all that is no less but "the perpetuated Russian chauvinism". To conclude, I am of opinion that the best for Balts would be to keep themselves strictly neutral (therefore, no NATO patrolling jet fighters, and no other russophobic actions). Don't you?

Russia should share kuril islands, let Japanese build factories there and collect tax revenues.

Vladimir: You are right, the Baltics and Eastern Europe in general most certainly is relying on NATO against the Russian threat. Russia has shown no remorse about what it did to them under the Soviet flag, and in the case of most has not expressed even the merest semblance of regret, let alone anything resembling an apology. It stopped oppressing them at around 1990 not out of the goodness of its heart, but because its own state collapsed from underneath it. Given these realities, Russia’s neighbours have every reason to suspect that in the right circumstances, Russia might do it all over again, and they naturally seek protection in the only alliance that is capable of defending them against that possibility. If Russia considers this a threat to itself, then its thinking is sick. You are right again when you say that Russians probably suffered more from Communism than did its neighbours. But with this difference: Communism is what Russians did to themselves. Hungary or Czechoslovakia or Estonia or Poland did not impose Communism on Russia and enforce it by foreign force of arms and terror for fifty years. And Communism is also what Russians did to their neighbours. If Russians oppress, terrorise and kill other Russians, that is their own business. Who gave them the right to also to it to Hungarians, Czechs, Estonians, Poles, and to almost all their other neighbours? Trying to justify Russia’s crimes against others by citing its crimes against itself is ridiculous. And I hardly see all Soviets as Russians. But I do see that those who killed tortured and deported Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians in the name of the Soviet State were overwhelmingly Russians. I also see that not a single one of them has been required by the “new” Russia to answer for any of their crimes whatsoever in a court of law. Your advice, Vladimir, that the Baltics should be neutral is about 70 years out of date. In 1939 Estonia was strictly neutral. This did not stop Moscow from invading and savaging it, and then Berlin, and then Moscow again in an occupation that lasted for almost fifty years! And you say that Estonia should now be neutral again? Not very likely, Vladimir. As for my alleged “Russophobia”, I have a couple of tickets to a wonderful Russian concert this weekend, which I shall enjoy hugely. I am neither Russophobic nor anti-Russian, have enjoyed Russian friends over the years, and have personally never met a Russian with whom I have not got on well. But I am entirely realistic about Russian politics, and would recommend that you be, too.

Marzipan6 No. Some were conscripted, some joined voluntarily Hitler’s military, but not served willingly. What the differencew does it makes voluntarily or willingly. Verb is not important. The were occupaer for Russians and expose hell of a threat which russians and other 12 sovet republic remove permanently. Now Balts are all slaves for IMF and International Corporations. Do you call it freedom? Good luck to you, my friend, and to your country. As far as Japan is concern, it is the same situation; Japan was started and they lose it.***. Kiss good by. Stop annoying neighbors. Live in peace with your Big Brother. You will benefit from it.

Yuriy, Japan will build factories on large russian land. Let kuril islands be a russian territory. Russia shared too much their own soil to barberian like Georgia, Ukrain etc.

Sally, your historical timeline needs a bit of repair. You describe Estonians serving within the German military being seen as occupiers by Russia. In 1939 Russia was not at war with Germany, Estonians were at war with absolutely nobody, and their country was following a policy of strict neutrality. BUT DESPITE THIS, MOSCOW INVADED AND OCCUPIED ESTONIA, BEGAN MURDERING ITS CIVILIANS, DEPORTING THOUSANDS OF THEM INTO SIBERIAN SLAVERY, DESTROYING THEIR GOVERNMENT AND SOVEREIGNTY, AND ESTABLISHING A REIGN OF SHEER TERROR OVER THEIR LAND, ENFORCED BY THE GUNS OF THE RED ARMY. If you are going to talk about occupation in an Estonian-Russian context, precisely there and nowhere else is where your account should start. However, you overlooked this entirely. Then in 1941, after the German-Russian war had begun, Germans invaded Estonia and a German occupation replaced the Soviet one. It was severe, murderous and destructive, but less severe, less murderous and less destructive than the Soviet occupation had been. By 1943-4 it was obvious that Germany was going to lose the war, and that the Soviet horror would return to brought back to Estonia by the re-invading Red Army. It was in this context that Estonians began fighting within the German military against the Red Army. They wanted to delay the return of the Russians in the hope that the war would end before a new Soviet terror could be imposed upon them. And by the way, this was not some policy of alliance by a sovereign Estonian government because none existed – the German occupation recognised no Estonian nation or government. It was simply the action of individual people trying desperately to save their loved ones from a new dose of Soviet barbarities. To characterise all of this as some kind of Estonian occupation of Russia simply takes one’s breath away! Sally asks whether I call Estonia’s present condition “freedom”. Absolutely, Sally, absolutely! I knew of Estonia’s Soviet-era circumstances closely and intensively, I visited Estonia for the first time a matter of months after the end of Soviet rule and saw with my own eyes what that rule had done there, and I have visited the country on repeated occasions since then, have seen it regain its own face and return to normality. On that basis – and on the basis of any authoritative history that anyone may care to read – I call Soviet Estonia enslaved and today’s Estonia free. Freedom is not utopia – there will always be problems. But the presence of problems is not synonymous with the presence of slavery. Sally tells us that “Japan started the war.” Once again, a bit of an acquaintance with history would be helpful. Japan was at peace with Russia until just a few days before the end of WW2, at which time Moscow unilaterally declared war against it, and to this day has not yet signed a peace treaty with it. Lastly, Sally advises “Stop annoying neighbours. Live at peace with your Big Brother.” The only brother-nation which Estonia has, big or small, is Finland, and it is about the only one of its neighbours with whom there has always been peace. Russia is a neighbour, it is big, but it is not a brother. Unfortunately Estonia finds it impossible to not annoy Russia, because the very fact that Estonia exists has always been, and continues to be, a point of vast annoyance to Russia.

Marzipan6: Remember what was the main agenda of Communism: The export of the Revolution! Helping workers all around the world to liberate themselves from greedy capitalists. Take for example 1968 in Czechoslovakia: many Russian soldiers were kind of shocked when they realized that Czeck people didn't really want them there, as they were indoctrinated that they were going to give some help to Czeck masses. They were naive of course, but that tells a lot about "conquering" nature of Russia. As for the communism, it is very well known it was basically initiated by Russian Jews (at least, in its early stage) who hated on the Tsarist regime and the Tsar himself. Tsar Nikola, his wife and children were brutally murdered and some people believe that no less than 20 million Russians were as well exterminated in the post revolutionary period. Russian elite was literally wiped out from the face of the earth. The "White Russia" was completely exterminated. Therefore, communism is not a real Russia and "conquering" is a basic communistic concept that doesn't fit with what Russia really is. Do you really believe Putin or Medvedev are hatching a plan as to how to conquer Baltic states, Czech, Slovakia, Poland and others? After so many of their own lands uninhabited? Come on, get serious. It is patrolling jet fighters, AMD shield and things like that that might really be worrying them. Russia would like the most not to feel itself threatened from the west side. It is all as simple as that. In conclusion, despite their ugly experience from the past times (related to communism) the Balts should now open their minds to a mere positive reasoning and to free themselves from fears of some alleged upcoming Russian invasion. Doing the contrary way is just what would rise the tensions further as the fears will grow on both sides (Russ and Balt).

Vladimir . spot on, well said! Also extend the argument further, as the west is NOT actively trying to reduce tensions, but actively is seeking to increase them on year by year basis. Then it becomes clear, that the plan is an aggression towards Russia. It is the intended end game, and clear to see. Will we fall for it, no, will it work, no, does it need huge debate no. Does it burn up the west, yes, oh pity!

Please note that the Estonians did fight for the Nazis, this is a simple undeniable fact, indeed Estonians also took part in the holocuast against jews, some of them their own people., Please also note that Russia entered the war against Japan, at the request of the US, indeed it was part of the bargain at the Yalta conference. Don't be mislead by ones who to try to rewrite and twist these basic facts. Japan was the agressor, Russia helped the US sort them out as part of a US initaited deal. We were all allies against the Nazis, and indeed AXIS powers, which included Estonia, they lost, that is their little problem. To argue Japan is some sort of victim of Russia, demonstrates a simple perversion of the mind, and demonstrates to total lack of credibility of the authors. Ask any POW who was taken by the Japanese soldiers about it! It is tiring to hear Russophobes trying to rewrite this simple history. Write as many wiki pages as you like, circularly reference them, get a few western paid western historians to say different, but they wont change the simple facts above. Move on! you lost the game, play a new one, called generate an Estonian economy!

To Vladimir: your response is thoughtful and positive, and this is appreciated. But it also needs to correspond to facts. During the Soviet era, realities were distorted terribly by state propaganda, and a large part of Russia’s population is still infected with that misinformation today. Additionally, many have a vested emotional, legal or political motivation to maintain it, and not replace it with reality. Because of this, many individuals as well as the Kremlin still try to operate on the basis of such distortions, and this makes a very negative impression on its neighbours. You write of Russian soldiers being “kind of shocked when they realized that Czech people didn’t really want them there, as they were indoctrinated that they were going to help the Czech masses.” Precisely the same, only on a much more severe scale, holds true for Russian perceptions of the Baltics. Not only were Russian soldiers of WW2 shocked to learn that people of the Baltics did not consider themselves to be part of the Soviet Union and did not want the Red Army there, today’s Russians are still shocked about that. They are still indoctrinated to believe that they were the great saviours and helpers of the Baltic peoples, and do not realize that they were just another foreign tormentor and occupier of those countries. Because Russians still cannot assimilate this fact, they must invent some other justification for the Baltics’ resistance to things Soviet, and their favourite invention is that the Baltics were and are Nazis and fascists. Not only has this been always utterly untrue, but additionally, it offers an ongoing, almost daily, profound offense to the Baltics, and makes it very hard for them to take Russia seriously. Responsibility for changing this rests with Russia and Russia alone. No one else can do it in Russia’s place. Secondly you write about Soviet Communism being initiated by Russian Jews. Russia’s neighbours have no grievances about who initiated Communism, and they frankly don't care; their grievances involve what Russians did to them under Communism once it had been initiated. It includes what present-day Russia is NOT doing in prosecuting those Russians who were guilty of crimes against humanity, what Russia is NOT doing in seeking genuine reconciliation with the neighbouring countries whom they victimised, and what it is NOT doing in repudiating the toxic Soviet propaganda which Moscow used, and still uses, to justify those outrages. Russians’ diversions about who may or may not have initiated Communism are seen by its neighbours as an unprincipled attempt by Russians to avoid facing up to what they did to others under Communism. You ask whether “Putin or Medvedev are hatching a plan as to how to conquer Baltic States, Czech, Slovakia, Poland and others?” At a press conference in 2006 Putin expressed a grotesquely distorted “understanding” of the history of how the Estonian state came into existence, clearly saying that it was a Soviet Russian gift in 1920 which Soviet Russia was likewise fully justified in taking away in 1940, and which it was good enough to give again in 1991. This is utterly wrong in all three instances, and it implies that in his view, Russia is entirely justified to rescind Estonian statehood again if it chooses. Whether the Kremlin has plans to re-conquer the Baltics and Eastern Europe, I don’t know. But anyone who follows Russia’s statements and actions knows that Russia has unforgivably and dangerously chauvinistic views about its neighbours, especially about its Baltic neighbours, and that it shows no signs at all of moderating these with reality. As such, Russia remains a dangerous country, and its neighbours stand in need of an adequate defensive alliance. You mentioned earlier that the main agenda of Communism was the export of revolution. This was true of Soviet Communism, but never of Chinese Communism. A reason why this was the complexion of Soviet Communism is, that it fits in so neatly with Russia’s own messianic proclivities, its chronic inability to see life through the eyes of anyone else (especially its neighbours), and its consummate insensitivity to their rights and to their suffering. Whereas Soviet Communism is gone, these Russian dispositions continue to be alive and well, are now expressed through the medium of Russian nationalism, and continue to make Russia a dangerous neighbour. You say that Russia more than anyone else would like to feel not threatened by the West. Unfortunately, Russia’s perceptions of threat tend to be coloured by elements of paranoia. When other countries want to live by their own traditions, their own values, their own understandings and their own aspirations, Russia feels threatened. This is not normal, but it is usual for Russia. For example, do you know of any other country on the planet that has ever, throughout all recorded history, descended into the same order of national hysteria when a small neighbour chose to respectfully relocate a statue in its own capital city to a dignified military cemetery a few kilometres away? Yet Russians do not believe that their outbursts over the Bronze Soldier issue in Estonia was anything untoward. It is this kind of blustering, aggressive unreality and non-self awareness that makes Russia a difficult neighbour at the best of times, and a dangerous one at other times. For Russia’s Baltic (and other) neighbours to be able to grow in trust and respect towards Russia, they have to see evidence of Russia acknowledging rather than ducking the realities of its own Soviet history, and see a genuine change of heart evidenced by authentic gestures of reconciliation towards them. But all they actually see is unreality and a swaggering chauvinism characterised by endless criticisms, accusations and antagonistic policies and actions emanating against them from Moscow. I could illustrate these with many specific examples, but this post is already long. Finally, you tell of fears growing on both sides, Russian and Baltic. History, both recent, medieval and ancient, has amply justified Estonia’s fears in regard to Russia – it is like a mouse next to an unruly giant. But what in all that is sane and logical has Russia ever had to fear from Estonia? Russia’s only argument against it seems to be that it exists at all, and that its existence prevents Russia’s territory from extending to the Baltic shore. This is not an argument that is possible for Estonia to answer in any way other than to simply continue existing. Estonia’s ancestors existed on their present territory thousands of years before the first proto-Russian ever reached their border, they have existed more than a thousand years with an antagonistic and difficult Russia for a neighbour, and Estonia intends to do whatever is needed to ensure that it exists for at least another thousand years besides.

To Count Cash, who writes, “Move on! You lost the game, play a new one, called generate an Estonian economy!” You mean the economy which continues to deliver a standard of living to its people, including its people of Russian ethnicity, a standard of living much higher than in Russia itself? A vast disparity between Estonian and Russian economic standards also existed in 1939, but then Russia invaded that neutral and peaceful neighbour and dragged it down to its own sad levels. Estonia is keen for that not to happen again – it is trying to do precisely what Count Cash counsels, namely move on as opposed to being dragged back. As for Japan and WW2, Japan certainly was an aggressor, but not against Russia. In that context, the aggression was exclusively Russian, as already detailed elsewhere. Attempting to hide behind Yalta’s skirts lessens Russia’s aggression against Japan by not one atom. And yes, the experience of prisoners of war in Japan was grim. Just as grim as the experience of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians in the Russian GULAG, who were neither combatants nor guilty of any crime whatever, but simply innocent victims of Soviet Russia’s messianic madness.

To hear the argument the Russia was the aggressor towards Japan, shows the level of perversion that historical manipulators will really stoop to. The facts are simple the Allies asked for the promise of Russia to declare war on Japan as part of settlements in WW2 (Yalta). These are the facts. They can't be hidden, they can't be changed. The allies were at war with the Axis powers, because of their aggression. To argue otherwise is absurd and pointless. Japan attacked the US, thats the way it happened, like Germany attacked Poland and Russia. The Allies formed, the Axis were formed. It was war. The allies acted to prosecute and end this war, acting as one body. In this state, any childish bilateral anylysis is rediculous perverse and lacks any basic credibility. These are the basic simple facts. Try to manipulate them all you like, but these facts remain always. Through fantastic effort the Allies defeated the Axis powers, amongst these were Japan. Get used to the truth! And BTW Estonia doesn't have a viable economy, it just lives on handouts from the Germans and other EU states. It needs to create a real one, instead of another piece of fiction. Because these other states may not be able to keep the handouts coming in the future!

Marzipan6: Now you have just exposed yourself completely and everyone can see it clearly who you really are: A Russian hater from the top down to the bottom. According to you it is Russia to be blamed for everything. According to you "the today's Russia (and its Kremlin) still operates on the basis of communistic distortions". What about the today's Germany? Is it still operating in the Nacy way at the present time? No? It seems it is only Estonians (and, perhaps, other Balts) that are not Nacy today, even if they were exactly what we all know they really were in WWII. But it is only Russia, you are saying, that still pursues the communistic distortions today? Come on Marzipan6, you are nothing but an extreme case of Russophobic individual. You do not really care about any sort of arguments, don't you? Just that kind of a person? I only hope you are an isolated example and that the majority of Estonians and others do indeed use to pursue a far more balanced approach. If what you are saying is indeed an overwhelming opinion among Baltic people (Estonians) then I'll tell you what it is going to happen if Russia would be attacked from over the Baltic territory: No one among the Russian leaders will not be able to convince Russian soldiers that they are to "liberate" otherwise friendly (allegedly) Baltic people, but they will treat you the way you probably deserve, i.e. like genuine enemies. Meanwhile, you just continue fortifying your positions and take care to arrange as more NATO jet fighters as you can to patrol over your skies, but nevertheless always keep in mind what happened to Georgia - when it became really tough there was nobody around to help!!! Cheers!

Count Cash: I agree with you. Just to expand a bit further: What we have today is all leaders talk about PEACE. Obama is coming soon to Russia to talk peace. The AMD issue is a part of peace (process) talks, as the MDW had been before US invasion of Iraq. European leaders also use to keep talking about peace. At the ends of meetings leaders usually shake hands announcing about "astonishing achievements" in talking about peace topics. It is almost like in a song "everywhere one goes seems like peace talk is there". What these intensified peace talks all around the globe do actually mean? They actually mean the war is on the verge, and it is going to be not the small one, but a large scale war. The US persistently tries to get closer to Russian borders with its weaponry, a move that had already been seen just prior to the Barbarosa plan was set on the stage. In contrast to Stalin who, although far from being a naive person, was nonetheless the only one at the time that wasn't really aware of what is going to happen, Putin and Medvedev are now to all appearances fully aware of actual US intentions. Some believe that, in essence, the war has already started and that right now each side is looking out for the best instant to deliver the first blow. I cannot talk here about the details, but I am fully confident (in fact, I know that positively) that Russia will win the forthcoming clash. As a side effect, it looks like our Baltic friends will continue maintaining the tradition of being on the wrong side.