Russia's Baltic policy is too soft — Kolerov

Russia's present official policy toward the Baltic states including Estonia is too soft, says Modest Kolerov, editor in chief of the news portal Regnum associated with Russian special services. Kolerov told BNS on Thursday that in his opinion Russia's policy toward the Baltic states is "too soft, insufficiently principled, much too commercial and inconsistent in a bureaucratic fashion.” The Russian expert who was in charge of promoting interregional and cultural relations with foreign countries in the Russian president's administration in 2005-2007 confirmed that Russia's present leaders "do not pin any foreign or internal policy hopes on Russian compatriots in the Baltic states.” "They do not and never did. And the reasons for this are both those of principle, political — it's immoral- as well as practical, technical — it's impossible,” he explained.

In Kolerov's words, viewing Russians who live in Estonia as the fifth column and a threat to national security is "one of the most fundamental principles underlying the present-day identity and legitimacy of the ethnocracy that governs Estonia”. "Discussing it (attitude toward Russian compatriots) in categories of scientific truth is pointless, it's a rationally cultivated irrational fact that has to be taken into consideration. It cannot be cured quickly, nor is it curable by transit and economic methods. It's radioactive material that has a special decay rate of its own,” he declared.

Speaking about democracy in Russia and the Baltic states, Kolerov declared that "talk about democracy as a living social organism which presumes a black-and-white yes/no answer is a form of demagogy and propaganda”."In real-life societies there is always struggle between democratic and undemocratic germs, it's their balance and combination that makes it possible to speak about a greater or smaller degree of democracy of a country and its individual spheres of life," the Regnum editor said. "Because of that I'm deeply convinced that whether or not Russia is a democracy is not a subject for discussion at all. Every responsible historian will tell you that Russia is like all other states except for archaic and totalitarian regimes a partial democracy,” he said.

The editor also affirmed that "Regnum is a privately-owned news agency and in addition to professional activity (production of news) it has a social and political viewpoint of its own which may and may not coincide with that of the powers and the state.” "Looking beyond the narrow region, you will see that Regnum's critical position applies not solely to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania but also to Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Abkhazia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia itself. In fact, to all topics the agency covers,” Kolerov said in written replies to BNS questions.

In response to the request for a comment on the opinion that Regnum is a pro-Kremlin media channel, Kolerov said: "With regard to 'Kremlin orders', I'm asking BNS to put to itself the following question: is it true that you are a politically engaged media channel that fulfills orders placed by (insert the necessary word) and is hostile toward Russia? I think that such a simple operation will make clear the mendacious and paranoid nature of this opinion about Regnum's engagement, which is based on the shameful idea (or practice) that principles come and go solely in the name of money or an order."

http://www.regnum.ru/english/1321525.html