They believe that Trump’s victory would ease tensions, because the billionaire has promised to cut a deal with Moscow and his proposal has calmed fears of “Russian aggression” stoked endlessly by elites.
Many in Estonia rather felt Hillary Clinton to be the menace because she continually promoted war with Russia. As one student told the New York Times: “Trump wants friendship. In a war, we would be just in the way.”
Such views, widespread in the Baltics and beyond, contrast starkly with the alarm, even panic, at Trump’s triumph among an Estonian-speaking political and foreign policy elite.
In the country’s capital, Tallinn, Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, is painted as a threat that must be resisted at all cost.
Trump raised alarm with the elite in Baltic capitals during his election campaign, by calling NATO “obsolete” and questioning why the United States should defend alliance members who don’t pay their share of defence.
Now Estonian legislators are scrambling to save face in the wake of his victory. The outgoing political establishment in Washington, including Clinton, wanted to provoke armed conflict, as the coup in Ukraine has illustrated.
Officials in the Baltic States, among the most outspoken critics of Putin, as well as advocates of European Union of sanctions against Russia, suddenly have to worry about an outbreak of peace between the two powers.
Before Trump’s victory, said Aleksandr Moissejenko, an etnic Russian office manager in Narva, Estonia, told the New York Times that “it seemed we were just a step away from World War III” because of all the Russian and American warplanes flying over Syria in support of rival sides.
Trump, he said, “never said Russia is good, just that it is not an enemy. This is a big improvement.” If war did break out, he added, “I would fight for Estonia, not Russia.”
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