HELSINKI (AP) – Estonia’s foreign intelligence agency said on Wednesday that Russia is relying on the COVID-19 pandemic to weaken unity in the West, which will help Moscow gain a more prominent role in international affairs and will leads to ” declining Western influence on the world scene ”. . ”
The Kremlin believes the pandemic will force Western nations to focus on domestic policies and economic problems and facilitate the rise of populist and extremist movements. said the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service in its annual report.
“In turn, Russia is prepared to replenish the flames to encourage these trends,” the report said. “Therefore, in 2021, Russian operations will once again influence the creation and deepening of divisions within and between Western societies, including at EU (European Union) level.”
The authors of the 79-page document said that Russia’s strategy is likely to include efforts to discredit COVID-19 vaccines developed in Western countries, particularly those made by the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca. Russian propaganda described the vaccine that AstraZeneca developed at Oxford University in England as a ‘monkey vaccine’.
“With these smear campaigns, Russia hopes on the one hand to create a more favorable position for its own vaccines on the world market and on the other hand to advance its strategic ambition to show itself as the first of the great powers. to provide a solution to the COVID-19 crisis, ”reads the report.
The Russian government did not immediately respond to the intelligence report of Estonia, a former Soviet republic. Moscow has repeatedly denied similar Western allegations of malicious intent in the past. It also accused the West of trying to discredit the Russian-made COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V.
Russia is actively promoting Sputnik V in several European countries, including Serbia. Hungary was the first and so far only European Union to buy quantities of Sputnik V.
‘The coronavirus epidemic has not diminished the actions and ambitions of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s regime. On the contrary, we can see an attempt to use the pandemic to make a profit for (Russia)’s domestic and foreign policy, “Estonian Director-General Mikk Marran told reporters at a news conference in Tallinn, the capital of the country.
Addressing the new US leadership and President Joe Biden, the report said that Russia’s agenda towards Washington was unlikely to change significantly and that it would remain ‘largely confrontational’.
Estonia’s relations with neighboring Russia have remained cold since 1991, when the 1.3 million Baltic country and its neighbors Latvia and Lithuania regained their independence amid the fall of the Soviet Union. The three countries have since joined NATO and the European Union.
Although the report focuses mainly on events in Russia or in neighboring countries such as Belarus and Ukraine, the report also discussed developments in China. Beijing’s ambitious plan to become the world leader in technology is said to pose ‘major security threats’ to the rest of the world.
New generation 5G mobile networks, advanced satellite navigation technology, cloud services and artificial intelligence were cited in the report as examples of where China has an important world role or hope.
China’s ‘leadership has a clear goal of making the world dependent on Chinese technology’, the document reads.
The authors of the report also warned the Estonian leadership that the integration of the country “into China’s autonomous technology ecosystem makes Estonia vulnerable and dependent on China.”
Estonia has previously banned China, the world’s leading 5G technology provider, from supplying technology and equipment to the government, citing security issues.