European states demand release of Estonian nabbed by Russian agents

Estonia’s European allies on Friday demanded that Russia release an Estonian security official who was allegedly abducted a week ago on Estonian territory and taken to a prison in Moscow, where he faces espionage charges.

Russian state-run media contend that Estonian Interior Ministry security officer Eston Kohver was detained on Russian territory when Moscow broke up what it said was “an undercover operation.”

Itar-Tass quoted the Russian Federal Security Service public relations center as saying Kohver was arrested in the Pskov region, near the Estonian border crossing at Luhamaa.

The Estonian was carrying “covert video recording, a loaded gun, and a bundle of cash,” Russia Today television reported. Kohver was said to have had 5,000 euros [$6,460] in his possession.

“We are concerned by the abduction on Sept. 5 of Estonian police officer Eston Kohver by the Russian security services on Estonian territory near the Estonian-Russian border,” a European Union spokesman said in a statement after Nordic and Baltic leaders discussed the incident at a meeting in the Estonian capital, Tallinn.

“Such action by the Russian Federation runs against international law and the principle of inviolability of borders,” the EU statement said.

The Kohver case has strained already tense relations between Russia and the Baltic states, which were part of the Soviet Union and dominated by Moscow for 50 years before declaring their independence in 1991. Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine on behalf of that former Soviet state’s Russian-speaking minority and its seizure of the Crimean peninsula have stirred fear of similar aggression against the three Baltic states, which are now members of the EU and NATO.

In a visit to Tallinn last week before the NATO summit in Wales, President Obama assured Estonia and its Baltic neighbors that the military alliance can be counted on to defend it against any use of force by Russia.

EU diplomats in Moscow have been in contact with Russian authorities “asking for a swift resolution” of the Kohver case, the alliance statement said.

The Russian government officially notified Tallinn of Kohver’s detention on Monday and said he had been provided a public defender to represent him during the two-month detention period authorized by an arrest warrant issued the day after he was detained, the Russian legal information service RAPSI reported.

The Estonian Foreign Ministry press service has said Kohver was “performing his duty to prevent trans-border crime” at the time he was abducted.

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