HELSINK (AP) – Estonia’s foreign intelligence agency said on Wednesday that Russia is counting on the pandemic COVID-19 to weaken unity in the West, which would help Moscow to gain a more prominent role in international affairs and would lead “the decline of Western influence on the global stage. “
The Kremlin believes that the pandemic will force Western nations to focus on domestic politics and economic problems and will facilitate the emergence of populist and extremist movements, the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service said in its annual report.
“For its part, Russia is prepared to put firewood on the flames to stimulate these trends,” says the report. “Therefore, 2021 will again see Russian-influenced operations aimed at creating and deepening divisions within and between Western societies, including at the EU (European Union) level.”
The authors of the 79-page document said that Russia’s strategy would likely include attempts to discredit the COVID-19 vaccines developed in Western countries, especially that made by the Swedish-British company AstraZeneca. Russian propaganda labeled the vaccine that AstraZeneca developed with the University of Oxford, England, as a “monkey vaccine”.
“With these smear campaigns, Russia hopes, on the one hand, to create a more favorable position for its own vaccines on the world market and, on the other hand, to promote its strategic ambition to show itself as the first among the great powers to provide a solution for the COVID-19 crisis, ”said the report.
The Russian government did not offer an immediate reaction to the intelligence report of Estonia, a former Soviet republic. Moscow has repeatedly denied similar Western allegations of bad intentions in the past. He also accused the West of trying to discredit the Russian-made COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V.
Russia is actively promoting Sputnik V in several European countries, including Serbia. Hungary was the first and so far the only country in the European Union to purchase quantities of Sputnik V.
“The coronavirus epidemic has not diminished the actions and ambitions of the Putin regime (of Russian President Vladimir). On the contrary, we can see how there is an attempt to use the pandemic to reap gains for domestic and foreign (Russian) policy, ”Mikk Marran, director general of the Estonian agency, told reporters during a news conference in Tallinn, capital of the parents.
Addressing new US leadership and President Joe Biden, the report said that Russia’s agenda towards Washington is unlikely to change significantly and will remain “largely conflicted”.
Estonia’s relations with neighboring Russia have remained cold since 1991, when the Baltic nation of 1.3 million and its neighbors Latvia and Lithuania regained their independence amid the fall of the Soviet Union. The three countries have since joined NATO and the European Union.
Although it focuses mainly on events in Russia or neighboring nations, such as Belarus and Ukraine, the report also discussed events in China. He said Beijing’s ambitious plan to become the global technology leader “poses major security threats” to the rest of the world.
New generation 5G mobile networks, advanced satellite navigation technology, cloud services and artificial intelligence were listed in the report as examples of where China has or expects to play an important global role.
“China’s leadership has a clear objective of making the world dependent on Chinese technology,” the document said.
The report’s authors also warned Estonia’s leadership that integrating the country “into China’s autonomous technology ecosystem makes Estonia vulnerable and dependent on China.”
Estonia previously banned Chinese Huawei, the world’s leading supplier of 5G technology, from providing technology and equipment to the government, citing security concerns.