Estonia announced that the country may be forced to close its border crossing points with Russia due to increased migration pressures, Estonian Police and Border Guard announced on Feb. 13.
“In recent weeks, Russia has deliberately directed to the Estonian border groups of foreigners lacking the legal right to enter the European Union,” the statement reads. “If these activities continue, we will be forced to close border crossing points to protect national security and public order, as has already been done in Finland due to migration pressure.”
The Estonian government has noted an influx of migrants and asylum seekers from Russia over recent months.
Estonia is a tiny country of a little over a million people and we already took on the most Ukrainian refugees per population and we currently have issues housing them. If Russians need refuge in another country they need to look elsewhere.
Estonia can definitely afford spare a little bit of goodwill imo.
And it has, Estonia accepted the most Ukrainian refugees per population. Currently all the refugee facilities are still full and the government is paying hotels to keep refugees. If Russian refugees come here in the winter they would likely die as there is nowhere to house them.
So the solution is to decide in their name to keep them in country of war, where you claim they will be safer, without even hearing their opinion.
Ultimately their opinion doesn’t matter. The government of Estonia will look out for it’s citizens first and foremost, currently we can’t accept more refugees and we can’t deal with a ton of people just coming here so they will close the border.
Everybody’s opinion matters, especially of EU citizens and even more of Estonian regarding this issue. Estonia can obviously deal with more migrants, it is just not convenient. Estonain goverment doesnt care about its citizens, but about getting reelected. They will do what is most in their interest.
Placing convienice of people from your country over others lives is obviously morally wrong. And unless you are a nationalist (right-wing) you can not believe that people from certain country have lives worth less than from another, even yours. So there is no difference between russian and estonian, and their interest should be placed at the same value. To disagree is by definition nationalism and if we are talking about ethnicity, racism.
OK if you are going down the road of ignorance toward both Estonian politics and the economic situation then we can drop that.
Are you really saying it’s the norm for countries to help every person in the world equally and not prioritise it’s citizens? Also by prioritising it’s own citizens they also prioritise the 20 or so % Russian population living here. People’s lives have equal worth but the responsibility to help someone falls on their nation first and foremost.
I am not saying it is the norm. I am saying it is right-wing, natonallistic and racist. Which is unfortuenately the norm. I am saying it is unethical and morally inexsusable, not that it is not normal.
It would be absolutely great if every single country in the world would care about every person equally. Both China and the US have enough resources and space to fit like every single refugee in the world so that would be an easy fix but that’s not the situation.
Why can’t Estonia send them elsewhere in the EU?
EU rules
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Regulation
Any law that prohibits people that are fleeing a war from entering a country is a pro-war inhumane law that shouldn’t exist. It is only moral to break any law that stops you from saving someone’s life. A lot of people like to imagine that during ethnic cleansing in their countries they would be heroes that shelter people in secret, but it is obvious that even people who consider themselves left-wing, value law (the will of the state) more than human life.
Then HELP them get to another country in stead of forcing them to stay in Russia where they might be forcibly enlisted or killed for opposing the war or just generally living in misery caused by the war as well as reactions to it.
If they are trying to cross the border here they would need to cross about 4 countries before getting anywhere where they can be accepted, Estonia does not have the resources to facilitate that.
There are also security concerns. In the early 2000nds Russia attempted to create a breakaway region in Estonia with an influx of Russian citizens. Viru county already has a high Russian population and we don’t need a repeat of that.
Ask the EU for help funding and coordinating it? I’m sure they have/are working on such projects already. If they aren’t, they should be.