After the war broke out, many Russians applied for Estonian citizenship, but Russia blocked the progress of the applications. Mere citizenship does not make anyone sympathize with the state, Läänemets reminds.
In Estonia about a tenth of permanently resident persons are either Russian citizens or completely stateless. Minister of the Interior of Estonia Lauri Läänemets estimates for STT that the clear majority, or about 60 percent of them, are satisfied with their lives and have a positive attitude towards the Estonian state and society.
At most one fifth of the group are pro-Russia, and the rest are indifferent to the citizenship issue, Läänemets estimates.
Estonia's stateless people are mainly of Russian background. The entire Estonian Russian minority share clearly more than a fifth of the country's inhabitants, just under 307,000 people out of 1.4 million inhabitants, if we look at nationality alone.
Year of comparison in Finland There are clearly less than a hundred thousand native Russians living in Russia citizens a good 33,000.
Citizenship issue came to the fore in Estonia recently, when the prime minister Kaja Kallas confirmed that the government is considering the idea presented by Läänemets already half of last year, that persons applying for Russian citizenship living permanently in Estonia could be expelled from the country. The justification was that by applying for citizenship, a person also shows his readiness to participate in Russia's war of aggression.
“We sent such a message, but we haven't noticed that this is a problem,” Läänemets admitted in an interview in the second half of January.
The interest in applying for Russian citizenship seems to be mostly non-existent in Estonia. Potential applicants could be imagined to come mainly from a group of stateless people with a Russian background.
There are almost 65,000 holders of these so-called gray passports or alien passports in Estonia. According to Läänemets, the group in question is quite old people, who are neither interested in applying for Russian nor Estonian citizenship. A Russian citizen wouldn't even be able to travel elsewhere in Europe, unlike a gray passport holder.
Estonia's specialty, the large number of stateless people born after the collapse of the Soviet Union, has indeed shrunk over the years. For example, in 2000 them was more than 170,000 more.
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“Soon after the full-scale war broke out in Ukraine, the number of people applying for Estonian citizenship tripled”
“This group is shrinking for natural reasons,” says Läänemets.
Russia's recent attempts to attract the Russian population of Estonia to become Russian citizens have not been successful, on the contrary.
“Soon after the full-scale war broke out in Ukraine, the number of people applying for Estonian citizenship tripled,” says Läänemets.
According to him, these applicants were specifically Russian citizens, not stateless. However, the process to change citizenship is not progressing.
Requests for renouncing citizenship to the Russian embassy, which is located on the same Pikk-katu in Tallinn's Old Town as the Estonian Ministry of the Interior, have been stuck in a paper war – obviously on purpose.
“The embassy has explained that due to previous diplomatic expulsions, they do not have enough staff to process applications,” says Läänemets.
Unlike in Finland, dual citizenship is not possible in Estonia.
Lääne forests there is a common misconception, both abroad and in Estonia, that Estonian citizenship in itself means a positive attitude towards Estonian society as well. According to the Minister of the Interior, the more determining factor is the person's own social and economic situation.
“We have a lot of people who have obtained Estonian citizenship after passing language tests and so on, but still haven't found a job,” Läänemets reminds.
According to him, there are also pro-Russian people in all citizenship groups in Estonia.
“But of course there are people who, because of their national background, operate more in the Russian information environment, and thus feel more Russian,” Läänemets admits.
According to the Minister of the Interior, internal security control was intensified in Estonia after the start of the war of aggression against Russia, and the authorities have a good picture of the situation. The physical network of pro-Russia supporters in the country has weakened, among other things, due to the fact that Russian citizens are no longer granted new residence permits in Estonia.
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“The outcome of the war in Ukraine also determines the security of our region in the long term.”
Of people backgrounds are also checked more closely, and this has also applied to war refugees who came to Estonia from Ukraine.
“Many of them have come from Eastern Ukraine. We have to be
especially careful because we need to know who these people really are,” says Läänemets.
Läänemets, leader of the Estonian Social Democratic Party, says that despite the difficult economic times, Estonians' support for helping Ukraine is still strong in Estonia.
“In addition to the government, the whole society understands that the outcome of the war in Ukraine will also determine the security of our region in the long term,” says the minister.
According to Läänemets, his party's role as a partner of the two liberal parties in the government is to show concern for the well-being of Estonians in such a way that their desire to help Ukraine would also remain in the future.
Estonian and Finnish statistical centers and the Estonian public radio company ERR were also used as sources in the story.
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