Expert on political games played by Poland and Baltic States

Blackmailing everyone and everything

The Baltic States and Poland continue to undermine their own interests to please the ‘powerful players’ within the European Union. How else can we explain that a small country like Estonia has planned a budget for the coming year with a 4.5 percent GDP deficit and is allocating 5 percent of its budget to defence? This is all happening despite an economic downturn. In his talk with Alfa Radio, political analyst Aleksei Dzermant discusses why Tallinn plans to fund these expenditures, even if it means cutting social programmes, and what drives the local authorities to make such decisions.

“This is not Estonia’s own decision,” the expert states firmly. “They have long been receiving instructions from the ‘centre’: their Washington bosses. But in carrying all this out, Tallinn is jumping the gun. For what purpose?

Being on the border with Russia, they need to show in every possible way that they are ready to follow all the ‘instructions’ and rely on support from Brussels and Washington. However, it is not the Estonian people themselves who are counting on this, but rather the ruling class, which, on one hand, will manage these funds, and on the other, reduce the social expenses related to maintaining the welfare of its population. They justify this by pointing to existing threats, claiming that arming is necessary and that people must endure hardships.

In any case, I think that their personal condition will not suffer. But as the front line of the struggle, they are obliged to demonstrate their vigorous activity. Although I doubt that they will be able to do anything effective.”

Mr. Dzermant connects this behaviour of the Estonian authorities with the existing trend in the West, which needs to be integrated, while making unpopular decisions, “They blindly dive into this, believing that if something goes wrong, they will be rescued. However, this mindset is quite arrogant and could even be considered suicidal.”

In the same context, Poland’s actions — widely believed to be directed from ‘above’ and involving a typical blackmail tactic — first involved closing the Polish-Belarusian border and then reopening it two weeks later.

“This is more of a precedent than just an isolated event,” the expert pointed out. “I would like to believe it was a one-time action, but in reality, it was a ‘pen test’. They claimed the closure was connected to the military drills, but we saw that the manoeuvres were merely used as a pretext to try out this strategy: close the border, put pressure on China, observe its reaction, and draw conclusions for themselves. I believe Poland will continue attempting similar actions.

We do not see any reasonable politicians there who are genuinely committed to good neighbourly relations. On the contrary, they are doing their utmost to escalate the situation and take advantage of it for their own gain. The incidents involving drones in Poland and Denmark, along with Trump’s statements about Russia, indicate that the game is being played very dirty. They use any pretext for provocations to blame our countries for escalating the threat, and in response, they implement aggressive actions such as closing borders, increasing militarisation and threats.

We see that the situation in Europe is highly unstable, and this impacts us. Meanwhile, the Americans appear to be openly washing their hands, acting instead through the Poles and their other allies.”