Member of the European Parliament from Estonia Yana Toom (Centrist Party) has reported on her personal website that she took part in the broadcast of the Russian studio portal Postimees. The program was dedicated to the relations between Russia and the West in the light of the Skripal case and the presidential elections that took place in the Russian Federation. Yana’s opponent was her European counterpart Urmas Paet (the Reform Party).
Answering the question of the host, whether the events in the UK influenced the victory of Vladimir Putin, Yana Toom said: “I think London has, of course, something to do with it”. If the situation is reversed, we can say that Theresa May is the Kremlin’s agent. The Britons, of course, tried very hard … It was clear that the turnout will be great, and the blame for that – our sanctions and the pressure that are on Russia. The crisis of relations is not British-Russian. This is primarily a crisis in the relations between Russia and the United States.” According to the MEP, the EU has a “Trojan horse” in the form of Eastern Europe, which is already trying to “cut coupons”. Toom emphasizes: “Poland uses the situation to block the “Nord Stream-2”- let Merkel reconsider her position and so on. Talks about the creation of the European defense alliance of Britain have never been liked, and now she decided to lead the process – to consolidate all against the “Russian threat”.
Commenting on the words of Urmas Paet about the inadmissibility of using chemical weapons in Europe, Yana Toom said: “It is still not clear who exactly used this weapon.” Paet claimed that “we need to look at the context: the Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, the Malaysian plane, Syria…” Toom retorted: “You can not blame anyone based on the context. And if you look at the context, let’s remember Colin Powell with a test tube – he also had “every reason to say” that they found something in Iraq. But they found nothing there… The Britons have no evidence, they said that Russia is to blame for highly likely – with a high degree of probability. With the context there is a very strange situation: we are accusing someone, because we do not like it. By doing this, we undermine the foundations of Western democracy – that’s the savagery in which. There is a presumption of innocence – and you, Urmas, proceed from the presumption of guilt.”
According to Yana Toom, the fact that Russia is building up its military power is quite a natural process. “Russia proceeds from the fact that, while it is weak, it is not considered. And so it actually is … I would look at this situation also from the intra-Estonian point of view. In Narva, the percentage of Putin’s support is higher than in Chechnya. When we supported the rhetoric of Theresa May, what match did we bring to the wick, what have we done with our own society? The result of the vote is still a protest against our policy towards the national minority,” Toom said. “We need to look at the context,” repeated Urmas Paet. “We need to look at ourselves,” Toom said. “Russia is our neighbor.” We have no constructive relations with her. This not normal”.