#tallinn 2021

[beatrack92]

Belgian 4x100m team 🇧🇪

Alexandra Mortant, Marine Jehaes, Lauryn Adewoye, and Mariam Oularé

2021 European Championships U20 (Tallinn)

[elenitrack]

Gedly Tugi 🇪🇪

2021 European Championships U23 (Tallinn)

[estonian-is-horrible]

"about twice the size of New Jersey"

Sex ratio

at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female 0-14 years: 1.05 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 1.02 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.55 male(s)/female total population: 0.89 male(s)/female (2024 est.)

Alcohol consumption per capita

total: 11.65 liters of pure alcohol (2019 est.)

etymology: the country name may derive from the Aesti, an ancient people who lived along the eastern Baltic Sea in the first centuries A.D. selected World Heritage Site locales: Historic Center (Old Town) of Tallinn; Struve Geodetic Arc

Youth unemployment rate (ages 15-24)

male: 18.2% (2023 est.) female: 16% (2023 est.)

Average household expenditures

on food: 20.2% of household expenditures (2021 est.) on alcohol and tobacco: 7.8% of household expenditures (2021 est.)

Illicit drugs

producer of synthetic drugs; important transshipment zone for cannabis, cocaine, opiates, and synthetic drugs since joining the European Union and the Schengen Accord; potential money laundering related to organized crime and drug trafficking is a concern, as is possible use of the gambling sector to launder funds; major use of opiates and ecstasy

source: 2024 CIA World Factbook

[mariacallous]

I’m fond of effective altruists. When you meet one, ask them how many people they’ve killed.

Effective altruism is the philosophy of Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto wunderkind due to be sentenced tomorrow for fraud and money laundering. Elon Musk has said that EA is close to what he believes. Facebook mogul Dustin Moskovitz and Skype cofounder Jaan Tallinn have spent mega-millions on its causes, and EAs have made major moves to influence American politics. In 2021, EA boasted of $46 billion in funding—comparable to what it’s estimated the Saudis spent over decades to spread Islamic fundamentalism around the world.

Effective altruism pitches itself as a hyperrational method of using any resource for the maximum good of the world. Here in Silicon Valley, EA has become a secular religion of the elites. Effective altruists filled the board of OpenAI, the $80 billion tech company that invented ChatGPT (until the day in November when they nearly crashed the company). EA is also heavily recruiting young people across rich universities like Stanford, where I work. Money is flowing from EA headquarters to entice students at Yale, Columbia, Berkeley, Penn, Swarthmore—if you went to a wealthy school, you’ll find EAs all over your alma mater.

Before the fall of SBF, the philosophers who founded EA glowed in his glory. Then SBF’s crypto empire crumbled, and his EA employees turned witness against him. The philosopher-founders of EA scrambled to frame Bankman-Fried as a sinner who strayed from their faith.

Yet Sam Bankman-Fried is the perfect prophet of EA, the epitome of its moral bankruptcy. The EA saga is not just a modern fable of corruption by money and fame, told in exaflops of computing power. This is a stranger story of how some small-time philosophers captured some big-bet billionaires, who in turn captured the philosophers—and how the two groups spun themselves into an opulent vortex that has sucked up thousands of bright minds worldwide.

[burlveneer-music]

Laurence Pike - The Undreamt-of Centre - "a requiem mass for drums, electronics and choir" based on the story of Orpheus

The Undreamt-of Centre is the fourth solo album by prolific Australian drummer/composer/producer Laurence Pike, an evocative, contemporary reimagining of the requiem mass. The album draws on the sounds of modern classical music, Japanese environmental ambient music, fourth world electronics, free jazz and the choral traditions of Estonia, with particular influence from Tallinn-based composer Tonu Korvits. Produced in collaboration with the Vox Sydney Philharmonia Choir, conducted by Pike’s childhood friend, composer Sam Lipman and recorded in a 19th century Gothic church.  In memory of Tony Lake Music written and performed by Laurence Pike (copyright control): Drums, Percussion, Electronics, Piano, Synthesisers, Field recordings Choir orchestrated and conducted by Sam Lipman Vox Sydney Philharmonia Choir: Soprano - Hannah Alexander, Josephine Brereton, Amelia Myers Alto - Jasmin Borsovszky, Ines Obermair, Hannah Roberts Tenor - Josh Borja, Tom Hazell, Ezra Hersch Baritone - Finnian Murphy, Jesse van Proctor, Ziggy Harris Soloist on ‘Introit’ - Josephine Brereton I first had the thought of working with voices a number of years ago. I had the strange notion of making a requiem mass for drums, electronics and choir. It sat with me since then, until it felt the time was right to realise the idea. Why a requiem? Initially I simply liked the idea of a structural format that had existed and been reimagined again and again over hundreds of years. Ultimately, it’s a ritual set to music. The processes and ecstatic outcomes of rituals, were something I had explored in making the Holy Spring album in 2019. I became interested in subverting the religious musical construct of a requiem into something far more contemporary, using language and sounds not readily associated with it. It also seemed a ready-made vehicle to explore the sound of a choir with my electro-acoustic drum kit performances. It was the decline in health and death of my father-in-law in July 2021 which contextualised this idea for me, and I have dedicated the album to his memory. I had begun searching for a narrative structure or text that I might set a choir to, while not adhering to the text of a Latin mass. I began reading the poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, in particular his ‘Sonnets to Orpheus’, inspired by the classical Greek myth of Orpheus. Orpheus was the son of Apollo and was considered to be the greatest of all poets and musicians. His most famous myth involves the death of his beloved Eurydice, with Orpheus travelling to the underworld to make a plea to Hades to return her to life, which he grants on the condition that Orpheus can’t look back at her until they have returned to the realm of the living. As they reach the exit from the underworld and fearing he’d been tricked, Orpheus turns back to see her and she disappears forever. There suddenly seemed to me to be a convergence of thought between this myth (its rumination on mortality, acceptance, the human soul and our inability to control universal forces), my recent experiences, and the idea of a requiem – a musical ritual to mark the transition from life to death and beyond.

[louisupdates]

FITFWT23: TALLINN RECAP

Concert number: 46

Date: 5 SEP 2023

Place: Saku Arena

Capacity: 10,000

Venue: [joni] [oli crump] [jdelf] [oli crump] [oli crump]

Livestream [x] [x]

Louis’ IG story

LTHQ Twitter and Instagram [b&w], Joshua, Joshua HQ, Joshua

Concert Group Picture

Fashion: 1017 ALYX 9SM t-shirt, Nike Air Max shoes, Nike Windrunner hoodie, Nike joggers, Nike trainers

Lithograph

Setlist

Photos: [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [handwriting] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [with fans] [with fans] [gifs] [x] [x] [gifs] [HQ] [x] [x] [x] [x] [HQ set] [HQ] [HQ] [HQ] [HQ] [HQ] [HQ] [Joshua profile HQ] [HQ][Joshua] [duck lips]

Videos: [x]

Speeches: It’s fucking loud! [x], Who knows? It’s a fucking song innit? [x]

Outro: All Star, by Smash Mouth [Steve Harwell, founding lead singer of Smash Mouth, dead at 56]

Press: DORK, App Trigger, ERR

Trends: [x]

Merch: [x] [x]

Misc: DORK has released all of Louis’ photos from the 2021 magazine cover photoshoot. Louis has been included in the NBA2K24 soundtrack (OOMS); Louis retweeted and followed 2K_UK, Charlie Lightening shows a bts clip of Kill My Mind music video. Louis followed Fred again. on Instagram.

[black-metal-artists]

🔥 Discover VIMM 🔥

🌲 Hailing from the dark, mystical forests of Tallinn, Estonia, VIMM combines the raw power of black and death metal into a unique and ever-shifting blend. Formed in 2021, this independent band delves deep into the inherent evil and complex nature of humanity, reflected in their intense music and powerful lyrics.

🎶 Check out their latest single, "Carcass of Mother Earth," now available on Spotify and YouTube! Let the haunting melodies and brutal riffs take you on a journey through the depths of Estonian darkness.

🎤 After a long journey to find their perfect sound, VIMM played their first show in April 2023 and are now gearing up for an August studio session to record their debut album. Stay tuned for more updates!

Contact: info@vimmband.com🔗 Carcass Of Mother Earth - Spotify link https://open.spotify.com/album/43WKxjpcrugM2axkixDyc0?si=fEVD75OITFKDsqeLt_yrfg

Carcass Of Mother Earth - Youtube link https://youtu.be/FJmNRNUZvj0?si=5KQlHDeSFwKn9Kd1

VIMM Instagram https://www.instagram.com/vimm.band/

VIMM Facebook https://www.facebook.com/VIMM.BAND.EST Follow @vimm.band for more updates and join us on this dark musical journey! 🌑

#VIMM#BlackMetal#DeathMetal#EstonianMetal#NewSingle#CarcassOfMotherEarth#MetalMusic#IndependentBand#Tallinn#Estonia#SupportLocalBands

[beardedmrbean]

Taiwan is seeking to open a representative office in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, drawing the ire of China, whose ambassador has threatened to withdraw from the Baltic country if the plan goes through.

Guo Xiaomei, the Chinese envoy, delivered the warning during a meeting with the chairman of the Estonia-China parliamentary group, Toomas Kivimagi.

China says the office would be a breach of its "one China" policy, which requires countries it has relations with to acknowledge that the People's Republic of China, and not Taiwan, is the legal representative of "China." Beijing also claims sovereignty over Taiwan, although the Chinese Communist Party government has never ruled there.

"We firmly oppose any form of official interaction between the Taiwan region and countries having diplomatic ties with China and oppose any action supporting Taiwan independence separatist forces," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at Wednesday's regular press conference.

However, leaders in the country of 1.3 million people say the office, with functions limited to economic and cultural services—not diplomatic ones—does not violate its commitments to China. It would also reportedly be opened in the name of "Taipei" rather than "Taiwan"—which is considered less controversial.

"Estonia does not recognize Taiwan as a state. As part of the 'One China Policy,' we are not developing political relations with Taiwan," Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in a statement shared with Newsweek.

"At the same time, we consider it important to boost relations in domains such as the economy, education, culture, relations between NGOs, and other similar fields. We also support Taiwan's participation in international life in areas of global importance, such as the fight against pandemics and Taiwan's attendance at the World Health Assembly," he added.

Due to Chinese pressure, Taiwan has not in recent years been allowed to join meetings of the World Health Organization's decision-making body, even as an observer.

Although the country values "a constructive relationship with Beijing," Tsahkna said it's also important to safeguard national values like democracy and human rights.

Estonia and Taiwan have "affirmed establishing an office is of great significance to strengthening bilateral exchanges, but we have not yet reached a consensus," Taiwanese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jeff Liu told Newsweek on Thursday.

Liu said he had no comment on the China's relationship with Estonia.

Estonia isn't the first Baltic country to draw China's ire over a Taiwan office. After Lithuania allowed Taiwan to open one in 2021, Beijing hit the country with tariffs, including secondary sanctions on companies from third countries, like Germany, that sourced Lithuanian parts for their products.

The move didn't have the desired effect. Lithuania had limited exposure to the Chinese economy due to a relatively low amount of bilateral trade.

In addition, the European Union rallied around its member. The 27-country bloc accused China of "coercion" and asked the World Trade Organization to intervene.

"Lithuania's decision to turn to Taiwan, away from China, set a precedent for its Baltic neighbors facing similar threats from China—and Russia. But the EU's response to Beijing's coercion against Lithuania also set a precedent for joint EU-level response to coercion, sending a message to Beijing that the bloc is ready to protect the interests of its member states against external pressure," Zsuzsa Ferenczy, a former political adviser to the European Parliament and an associate researcher for Belgian university Vrije Universiteit Brussel, told Newsweek.

Ferenczy said this resolve has only been strengthened in light of the support China has shown for Russia's invasion of Ukraine and that it's not in Beijing's interests to once again take serious action against an EU member on this issue.

"While Beijing will protest against any embrace of Taiwan, it has also been trying to rebuild the damage its coercion against Lithuania has done to EU-China ties. Beijing's response will tell whether it has learned from the lesson," she said.

When China issued its warning to Estonia, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu was in the country as part of a six-day tour of the Baltic states.

"We may be small, but a strong bond of democracies can make us mightier than we could ever imagine," Wu proclaimed in a speech in Tallinn on Wednesday.

[jameelahmaury]

Tallinn - December 2021

[eurovision-facts]

Eurovision Fact #221:

It is fairly common for a nation to receive an overall final score of nul points in the Eurovision Song Contest, but it’s less common for multiple nations to receive zero points during the same competition. Out of the total sixty-six Eurovision Song Contests that have been held, twenty-two have had at least one contestant who earned zero points. 

The most contestants receiving nul points in a single contest is four. This happened a total of four times, all in a row, in 1962, 1963, 1964, and 1965.

Austria and Norway are tied for most times earning nul points with a total of 4 losses.

The following is a list of the years in which contestants gained zero points and which nations they were from:

1962: Netherlands, Austria, Spain, and Belgium.

1963: Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, and Norway.

1964: Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Portugal, and Germany.

1965: Spain, Finland, Belgium, and Germany.

1966: Italy and Monaco.

1967: Switzerland.

1970: Luxembourg.

1978: Norway.

1981: Norway.

1982: Finland

1983: Spain and Türkiye.

1987: Türkiye.

1988: Austria.

1989: Iceland.

1991: Austria.

1994: Lithuania

1997: Norway and Portugal

1998: Switzerland.

2003: United Kingdom.

2015: Austria and Germany.

2021: United Kingdom.

[Sources]

Turin 2022 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv.

Rotterdam 2021 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Tel Aviv 2019 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Lisbon 2018 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Kyiv 2017 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Stockholm 2016 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Vienna 2015 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Copenhagen 2014 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Malmö 2013 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Baku 2012 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Düsseldorf  2011 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Oslo 2010 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Moscow 2009 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Belgrade 2008 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Helsinki 2007 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv.

Athens 2006 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Kyiv 2005 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Istanbul 2004 Grand Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Riga 2003 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Tallinn 2002 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Copenhagen 2001 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Stockholm 2000 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Jerusalem 1999 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Birmingham 1998 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Dublin 1997 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv.

Oslo 1996 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Dublin 1995 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Dublin 1994 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Millstreet 1993 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Malmö  1992 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv.

Rome 1991 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Zagreb 1990 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Lausanne 1989  Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Dublin 1988 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Brussels 1987 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv.

Bergen 1986 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Gothenberg 1985 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Luxembourg 1984 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Munich 1983 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Harrogate 1982 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Dublin 1981 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

The Hague 1980 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Jerusalem 1979 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Paris 1978 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv.

London 1977 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv.

The Hague 1976 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Stockholm 1975 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Brighton 1974 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Luxembourg 1973 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Edinburgh 1972 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Dublin 1971 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Amsterdam 1970 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv.

Madrid 1969 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

London 1968 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Vienna 1967 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv.

Luxembourg 1966 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Naples 1965 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv.

Copenhagen 1964 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

London 1963 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Luxembourg 1962 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Cannes 1961 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv.

London 1960 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Cannes 1959 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Hilversum 1958 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv. 

Frankfurt am Main 1957 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv.

Lugano 1956 Final Scoreboard, Eurovision.tv.

[beatrack92]

Zoë Laureys 🇧🇪

2021 European Championships U20 (Tallinn)

[elenitrack]

Marleen Mülla 🇪🇪

2021 European Championships U23 (Tallinn)

[libertariantaoist]

Here is your daily roundup of today's news:

News Roundup 5/17/2023

by Kyle Anzalone

US News

The far-reaching effects of America’s War on Terror may have contributed to the deaths of some 4.5 million people, according to new research by Brown University’s ‘Costs of War’ project. While many of the fatalities were the direct result of violent conflict, indirect causes such as economic collapse and food insecurity have taken a far greater toll. The Institute

Russia

The leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) will adopt a prohibition on restarting oil imports from Russia, according to the Financial Times. The “highly symbolic” ban falls well short of the total export embargo proposed by Washington. The Institute

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have agreed to host a delegation of African leaders to discuss a potential peace plan for the conflict in Ukraine. AWC

Germany on Saturday announced its largest package of military aid for Kyiv worth $2.95 billion, Berlin’s largest since Russia invaded Ukraine last year. AWC

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Britain Monday and secured pledges for more military equipment from London, including air defense missiles and long-range attack drones. AWC

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has privately plotted major attacks inside Russia while pledging publicly that his forces won’t use Western-provided arms to target Russian territory, The Washington Post reported on Saturday. AWC

The Washington Post deleted a portion of an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, where he accused the paper of helping Russia by posing a question about information contained in leaked classified documents. AWC

The Russian Defense Ministry on Saturday said Ukrainian forces have already used British-provided long-range Storm Shadow missiles in attacks on the Russian-controlled Donbas city of Luhansk. AWC

The last massive aid package Congress authorized for Ukraine has about $6 billion left, which is expected to be used up by mid-summer, POLITICO reported Monday. AWC

Warsaw received its first shipment of US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), manufactured by Lockheed Martin, and announced plans to deploy the launchers near the country’s shared border with Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave. The Institute

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, dismissed claims made by The Washington Post that he offered Ukraine Russian troop positions in exchange for a Ukrainian withdrawal from Bakhmut, calling the report “laughable.” AWC

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization conducted war games aimed at tracking and eliminating submarines. The 12-nation exercises were the alliance’s largest ever military drills simulating underwater warfare. The Institute

Russia’s military said Tuesday that it hit a US-made Patriot air defense system in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv with a hypersonic missile, which was later confirmed by a US official. AWC

Kiev officially joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Cyber Defense Center on Tuesday. Ukraine’s flag was raised at the headquarters of NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) in Tallinn, according to a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry statement. The Institute

On Monday, the CIA published a video on YouTube and Telegram urging Russians to contact the agency in an effort to recruit intelligence assets inside Russia. AWC

China

A high-level Chinese envoy is set to begin a trip that will bring him to Russia, Ukraine, and several other European countries as Beijing hopes to broker a ceasefire to bring an end to the fighting in Ukraine. AWC

Beijing says on 1/5/2021 the US conducted an antisubmarine operation about 100 miles from Hong Kong. When Chinese forces attempted to seize some American equipment, Washington destroyed it. SCMP

On Tuesday, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) responded to US plans to provide Taiwan with $500 million in unprecedented military aid and reports that said hundreds of US troops have been deployed to the island, warning it will “firmly crush attempts at external interference.” AWC

A US envoy said Monday that the US and the Federated States of Micronesia have agreed to extend a strategic pact that will allow the US to maintain military access to the Pacific Island nation. AWC

President Biden has canceled planned visits to Papua New Guinea and Australia to focus on the debt ceiling debate that’s ongoing in Washington, The Associated Press reported on Tuesday. AWC

Middle East

European countries are pressing Biden to resume talks with Iran about reviving the nuclear agreement. WSJ

The US military says it’s looking into reports that it killed a civilian in a recent airstrike it launched in northwest Syria. AWC

The Cradle reported on Tuesday that the US and Syria have been engaged in secret, direct negotiations in the Omani capital of Muscat. AWC

Read More

[mariacallous]

From left: Latvian President Egils Levits, Slovakian President Zuzana Caputova, U.S. President Joe Biden, Polish President Andrzej Duda, and other participants leave the podium after posing for a group photo during a Bucharest Nine meeting at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw on Feb. 22. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

On a gray February day in 2021, Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, touched down in Moscow angling for a diplomatic opening. The response was a resounding “nyet.”

During a joint press conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lambasted the EU as an “unreliable partner” and accused European leaders of lying about the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who just days before was sentenced by a Moscow court to an extended prison sentence. Borrell’s diplomatic humiliation served as a wake-up call for leaders in Western Europe: Moscow’s worst instincts had not collapsed alongside the Soviet Union but had merely gone into hibernation. 

“I think, for him, it was a mini-shock that a Russian foreign minister could treat him like that,” said Marina Kaljurand, a member of the European Parliament who previously served as Estonia’s foreign minister. “It was an eye-opener. After that, nobody could think that Russia could be treated as a partner. They are not partners.” 

It was a message that Eastern Europe had been trying to convey to the West for years, and it finally hit home. When Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine a year later—igniting Europe’s largest land war since World War II—the Western world put aside years of debate over how to change Moscow’s behavior, uniting to impose bruising sanctions designed to cut the Kremlin out of European energy markets and leave Russian natural gas pipelines into Europe rusting at the bottom of the sea. 

As the war grinds into its second year with little end in sight, familiar fissures threaten to reemerge. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland—once under the Soviet boot and always suspicious of a post-Berlin Wall Russia—have found themselves in the driver’s seat in pushing their Western counterparts to speed up weapons deliveries to Ukraine and getting European capitals to stop fearing Russia’s saber-rattling rhetoric.

But Eastern European diplomats are tired of hearing that they had Russian intentions right all along. Now, they’re aiming to make sure that Western isolation of Moscow becomes a permanent feature of U.S. and European policy, not a bug in the software that shows up whenever Russian tanks roll over another former Soviet border. 

“We should have listened to Eastern Europe, right?” said a U.S. congressional aide, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media. “[U.S. President Joe] Biden should not have been doing summits with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. Some of this shit was such a no-brainer. We were kind of on foreign-policy autopilot.”

The fault lines run right down the center of Europe—and play right to the heart of Russia’s war in Ukraine—with deep philosophical differences over how the war might end.

“From a Central and Eastern Europe perspective, if Russia is not evicted from all of Ukraine’s 1991 borders, then we will see an escalation,” said Liana Fix, a fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

But in Western Europe, even as it bolsters support for a Ukrainian victory, there is fear that a crushing Russian defeat in Ukraine could embolden Putin to lash out more violently. “From the German and French perspective, it’s the other way around,” Fix said.

A protester holds an Estonian flag next to an anti-Putin poster during a demonstration in front of the Russian Embassy in Kyiv on May 10, 2007. Protesters supported Estonia in its removal of a Soviet war monument from central Tallinn. SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images

In February 2007, Putin all but declared war on the West in a speech at the Munich Security Conference, railing against NATO’s eastward expansion and U.S. hegemony and signaling Russia’s new shift to a harder line.

Despite initial hopes that Putin, who came to power in 2000, could serve as a reformer of the post-Soviet state, the contours of what would become a familiar challenge were beginning to emerge. As the Kremlin began to show authoritarian tendencies at home and expansionist inclinations abroad, the West hoped to get Putin back on course. But Eastern European countries wanted Europe and NATO to show firmer resolve, fearing they’d be next. And they had reason to worry. 

Later in 2007, Estonia was hit by a devastating wave of Russian cyberattacks after the country’s government announced plans to relocate a Soviet war memorial from the capital, Tallinn. Kaljurand, the former Estonian foreign minister who was then her country’s ambassador to Russia, said she was not allowed to go on Russian state television to explain the move. Russia launched a smear campaign against her, and a pro-Putin youth organization surrounded the Estonian Embassy in Moscow, just half a mile from the Kremlin. 

“When they left, there was a group of kids, maybe first or second graders, who were standing in front of our embassy,” Kaljurand recalled. “And the teacher was telling the kids: ‘That’s the embassy where fascists work.’” Propaganda posters were put up all over Moscow depicting Kaljurand with a Hitler mustache. The incident has come to be regarded as one of Russia’s first forays into hybrid warfare, testing a number of tactics that would later be deployed against Ukraine. 

The following year, Russia went from a hybrid war to a hot one, invading neighboring Georgia in August 2008 and carving out two pro-Russia breakaway regions. Still, the West was eager to hit the reset button—literally. Seeing the possibility of another reformer emerging in Russia with Dmitry Medvedev’s election as Russian president in 2008, the nascent Obama administration a year later announced plans to reset the relationship. In 2010, at a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, the parties agreed to forge ahead in developing a “true strategic” partnership. 

Eastern allies were incensed. Today, they insist that the West’s refusal to show Putin a flashing red light in Georgia’s short war allowed the Kremlin to continually overstep, all the way to February 2022. “It did not start with Ukraine,” Kaljurand said. “It started with the war in Georgia, when the EU and NATO did not react quickly enough and efficiently enough and returned back to business.”

Left: People wave Lithuanian flags as they welcome the first liquefied natural gas terminal in the Port of Klaipeda, Lithuania, on Oct. 27, 2014. The terminal is an alternative to gas imports from Russia. PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP via Getty Images

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, Duda, and Kadri Simson, the European commissioner for energy, pose for photos during the inauguration of a gas pipeline between Poland and Lithuania in Jauniunai, Lithuania, on May 5, 2022. PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP via Getty Images

In February 2014, while throngs of young Ukrainian protesters braved subzero temperatures to turn Kyiv’s Independence Square, known to locals as the Maidan, into a massive rebuke of the pro-Russian government of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, NATO intelligence officials in Brussels were picking up worrying signals. They believed Russia was planning a lightning offensive on the Crimean Peninsula, which had been Ukrainian territory since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It would be the biggest land grab in Europe since the end of World War II.

The Western side of the NATO alliance—hundreds if not thousands of miles away from a war that threatened to show up on the doorstep of the eastern flank—was still in disbelief. “This intelligence was put in doubt by certain allies,” said Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who served as NATO’s secretary-general from 2009 until just after the 2014 Russian invasion. “There was no consensus within NATO when it came to even recognize the Russian aggression within Ukraine.” 

Still, Western leaders began to deploy some artillery—economically, at least. By early March, weeks after Russia’s invasion, the United States and EU countries kicked sanctions against Russia into gear, with the Obama administration freezing the assets of top Russian officials close to Putin and slapping wide-ranging travel restrictions on the Kremlin. There were also U.S. sanctions on Russia’s energy and defense sectors.

Eastern Europe wanted to put economic cooperation with Russia on a permanent timeout. But even after Russia’s snatch of Crimea, Moscow was seen as both too important to isolate and too weak to pose a real threat. The Obama administration was intent on refocusing on China, its top foreign-policy priority, while Germany and other European countries still thought Russia was the best game in town to fuel their economies. 

A year after Russia’s little green men took parts of Ukraine, European energy companies signed a deal with Russia’s state-owned Gazprom to build a second natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany that would redouble Berlin’s—and Europe’s—reliance on Russian energy exports. The storm around the Nord Stream 2 pipeline would continue until it was canceled just after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and later blown up by unknown saboteurs.

“Estonia and all the Baltics were against it from the very beginning because we’ve seen clearly it’s not an economic project, it’s not an energy project—it’s a political project,” Kaljurand said. “Yes, on paper, the EU was talking about diversification of sources and diversification of partners, but in practical terms, the EU did nothing to dismantle itself from Russia.” 

Officials in Berlin, including former Chancellor Angela Merkel, maintained that it was purely commercial in nature. Meanwhile, Washington and countries in Eastern Europe feared that going back to business as usual with the construction of the pipeline would give Moscow outsized influence over the continent’s energy markets. The Obama administration also began making overtures to the EU to convince members of the bloc not to go ahead with the energy projects, and Eastern members, such as Estonia, began pushing for the continent to move toward energy diversification. Yet Western sanctions shied away from targeting Russia’s ongoing energy production, preferring to kneecap its future output. That let the Kremlin bank billions of dollars while squatting on another country’s turf.

“The lack of natural resource sanctions was a huge, huge problem for a really long time,” the U.S. congressional aide said. “It’s kind of the reason the Russian economy is still afloat now.” 

While Germany plowed ahead with the Nord Stream 2 project, suspending the pipeline’s certification only days before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Eastern Europe began trying to move further out of the grip of Moscow’s pipelines. Lithuania was among the first out of the gate, importing U.S. natural gas from ships. Others soon followed.

“[Poland] knew from the get-go that Putin would use energy as a weapon,” said Marek Magierowski, the Polish ambassador to the United States.

Warsaw began importing liquefied natural gas from Qatar ahead of the war. Now, it is hoping to tap the Baltic Pipe project, which connects North Sea gas from Norway to the Polish grid. Not until March 2022 did the European Parliament pass a resolution calling for an embargo on all Russian energy sources. It was a sign of influence beginning to shift in the European bloc from West to East. 

“There’s this big debate about the gravity shift toward the East, and I do think there’s some truth to it,” said Fix, the Council on Foreign Relations fellow. “Poland plays a much larger role now.” 

Soldiers stand in front of a German tank used by the NATO Enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group during German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to Pabrade, Lithuania, on June 7, 2022. Scholz pledged additional military support to Lithuania to defend against a possible Russian attack. Michael Kappeler/picture alliance via Getty Images

As U.S. intelligence began to pick up signs in late 2021 about Moscow’s plans to invade Ukraine, increasingly ashen-faced U.S. diplomats shuttled across the Atlantic as they sought both to talk the Russians down from the ledge and to warn allies in Europe about what was about to come. Washington’s warnings became a kind of Rorschach test in Europe. The United Kingdom joined Washington in declassifying intelligence in a bid to expose Moscow’s plans and sending thousands of anti-tank missiles to arm Ukraine for the coming onslaught. And while France stood pat, Poland, the Czech Republic, and the three Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—raided their stockpiles to send munitions, unmanned drones, portable air defense systems, artillery rounds, and Stinger surface-to-air missiles.

Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, vowed to send 5,000 helmets, sparking derision. “What does Germany want to send next? Pillows?” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko asked in January 2022. 

Europe’s top diplomat, Borrell, has since acknowledged that many in Brussels failed to heed Washington’s warnings ahead of the war. “We did not believe that the war was coming. I have to recognize that here, in Brussels, the Americans were telling us, ‘They will attack, they will attack,’ and we were quite reluctant to believe it,” he told a meeting of EU ambassadors last October. 

Early on, Europe had unity, ratifying wave after wave of sanctions on Moscow and rallying in support of Ukraine and the millions of refugees fleeing the war. “That was only a very short period,” Fix said. “And then all the old Europeans fell back to their original positions with different takes on the situation.”

While countries on Europe’s eastern flank fear they’ll be next, Western members of NATO, including the United States, Germany, and France, seem to be counting beans. Getting deliveries of serious arms—whether artillery and shells, tanks, or infantry fighting vehicles—has been a yearlong struggle inside the alliance, even as Eastern Europe seems prepared to spend whatever they have to declaw the bear on their borders. 

“The war revealed huge gaps in Europe’s defense capabilities, but it also revealed the huge gaps between Eastern and Western allies,” said one former senior official at the U.S. Defense Department, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Here, we have Poland and the Baltic states practically begging on Ukraine’s behalf for more weapons, and Germany, France, and other powerful militaries saying, ‘Well, hang on, let’s wait and see.’”

In the year since then, some Western European officials, chastened by their miscalculations, have readily admitted their mistakes. “For years, it almost seemed like our Eastern allies were the boy who cried wolf. Well, the wolf came, and we were too slow to believe them,” said one senior Western European diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We are, of course, all close allies, but there is bad blood there that we cannot ignore.”

“We saw the same intelligence. We had the same warnings. But I just couldn’t believe there would be an actual invasion, until there was,” the diplomat added. 

Others say Western governments have done due diligence and paid due service to Ukraine. Germany, for instance, had long refused to send German-made weapons into active warzones, including Ukraine, before reversing course days into Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country. Now, in the past year, Berlin has shipped advanced tanks, air defense systems, and more to the front line. 

“This isn’t just about Germany sending weapons into conflict zones for the first time in its modern era or about spending more on defense. It’s about a fundamental shift in how Germany sees itself as a member of Europe and a defender of Europe,” said Rachel Rizzo, an expert on European security at the Atlantic Council. 

“Whatever Germany promises, they follow through on,” said one Eastern European defense official. “The issue is getting Berlin to make the decision in the first place, but after that, then they really move.” 

The question is coming to a head this spring, as Ukraine prepares for a counteroffensive to boot the Russian invaders off its soil. If the offensive is successful, officials say, Eastern Europe may let up on the pressure on Western Europe to do more. If it founders, however, the arguments from the East that Western Europe is drip-feeding Ukraine too few weapons too late in the game will only sharpen these divisions within NATO and the EU. 

But even though the scale of German and French commitments has far exceeded some of the tiny Baltic nations, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania rank first, second, and third in contributions to Ukraine by percentage of GDP. (Poland, a much larger economy, is fourth.) And they’re cutting right into bone to do it: Tallinn sent its entire stockpile of 155 mm howitzer artillery pieces to Ukraine in January. 

“They’ve really taken direct action and just handed over a lot of their stuff to the Ukrainians,” said the U.S. congressional aide. “They’re not asking permission from Brussels. They’re just kind of doing it.”

Slow and cautious isn’t always the best course.

“Our hesitation has actually facilitated Putin’s escalation of the war,” said Rasmussen, the former NATO secretary-general. “You cannot win a war by an incremental, step-by-step approach. You have to surprise and overwhelm your adversary.”

People hold flags and posters during a protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine near the Lithuanian Parliament in Vilnius on Feb. 24, 2022.Paulius Peleckis/Getty Images

The magnitude of the moment wasn’t lost on Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. One year after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded for military aid at the Munich Security Conference, precisely where Putin first laid down his cards, she countered with a flush. A year earlier, Western officials had doubted Zelensky’s government would hold and were hesitant to send sophisticated military equipment that could fall into the hands of Russian troops.

This time, in 2023, it was Western leaders echoing talking points that emerged from the East. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris told delegates that Russia had committed war crimes in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and that the United States wanted an international tribunal. And after Kallas called for the EU to start buying ammunition to help Ukraine, Borrell, the bloc’s top diplomat, gave the plan an almost immediate public endorsement.

Kallas, a lawyer by training, saw a parallel in the different responses from East and West. “We are expecting the worst because of our experience and positively surprised when it doesn’t happen. For the West, it is vice versa,” she said. “What is the strategy to actually be better prepared for the future? I think it’s better to prepare for the worst and then be positively surprised when it doesn’t happen.”

More than a year after Russia’s invasion, Europe is indelibly marked by the largest land war on the continent in a generation. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, overcoming a diffuse three-party coalition and the ugly World War II-era connotations of German tanks being sent to fight Russia, is massing Berlin’s largest military buildup in 70 years. The Baltic states have seen the attitude change in the West. They’re worried it won’t stick. 

“Almost every Western leader has said, ‘We should have listened to you.’ We’re not happy about that, but that’s the reality,” Kaljurand said.

“Now the question comes, is it only in words, or are you really going to listen to us so that in a year or two we will not be back in business with Russia as we were before the 24th of February?”

[svenmantsik]

Kontakt:

Instagram: @ seitsmes_mnt

Twitter: @ seitsmes_mnt

sven.mantsik@gmail.com / sven-aleksander.mantsik@artun.ee

Artist portfolio (2024) in English

Artist portfolio (2022) in Estonian

My artwork draws heavily from personal life experiences with trauma, poverty, and mental illnesses. Striving to maintain optimism and humor for mental well-being, I find inspiration in childhood book authors and illustrators like Edgar Valter and Tove Jansson. My preferred techniques, childishly, include comics and animation. I see myself as living the life of a tragicomic character; adversity shapes the narrative and brings joy to someone. Absurd and depressing incidents, experiences, and phenomena often look good on paper. Transforming experiences into artwork, I become both the creator and the first reader. My first job was as a cashier at Comarket, a retail chain that no longer exists. The cat from the logo serves as a simple self portrait, as if that job shaped me into that identity permanently, given that my only paid job is still in retail. The idea of working a cash register for the rest of my life fills me with existential dread and drains all hope for a bright future. Anyway, I value traditional tools on paper, from pencil to pen, as well as various printmaking techniques from aquatint to screen printing. When it comes to drawing, I prefer the very permanent, unerasable line of a ballpoint pen, because pencil annoys me with its habit of getting blurry over time and infecting other drawings. The unique line of a ballpoint pen inspired my Bachelor's degree thesis, where I filled a roll-on deodorant with ink and used it as a large pen.

Sven Mantsik

Education:

2023 – 2025: Estonian Academy of Arts, Master of Contemporary Art 2019 – 2022: Estonian Academy of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts 2014 – 2017: Pelgulinna Gymnasium (high school) 2004 – 2014: Tallinna Nõmme Basic School (primary and secondary school)

Group exhibitions:

2023 Hindamismaraton. EKA galerii 2022 TASE’22. Eesti Kunstiakadeemia 2021 Asjad ja mitteasjad. Haapsalu Linnagalerii 2021 Booked. MUU Helsinki Contemporary Art Centre 2021 Kiirmenetlus. EKA graafika osakonna koomiksinäitus, EKA väligalerii, Tallinn 2020 Hindamismaraton. EKA galerii, Tallinn 2020 Mütoloogiliste olendite anatoomia. Endla teatri küünigalerii, Pärnu 2017 Pelgulinna Gümnaasiumi kunstisuuna lõputööde näitus, Kullo Lastegalerii, Tallinn

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