Estonia’s approach to visas and residence permits for Russians has been the strictest in Europe. The future government plans to make an exception for students and experts.
TALLINN Estonia has had a strict attitude towards Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine since the beginning. The issuing of visas and residence permits to Russians was stopped right at the beginning of the war. Previously issued visas and temporary residence permits were also canceled last summer.
Estonia’s policies put hundreds of Russian citizens studying in Estonia in a difficult situation. The students’ residence permits were not annulled, but they were not extended either.
The situation was particularly difficult for those students who did not graduate within the deadline or who would have liked to continue their studies.
– The Fatherland Party opposed any exceptions to the residence permit practice in the government, chairman of the Social Democrats, Minister of the Interior of Estonia Lauri Läänemets tells during a break in government negotiations.
The motherland is no longer involved in government patterns. Parliamentary elections were held in Estonia at the beginning of March. The liberal reform party and Eesti 200 party and the social democrats are negotiating the new government.
The new government is relaxing the residence conditions for students and some other Russian citizens.
– The student issue is one thing. Secondly, there is a shortage of doctors and some other specialists in Estonia, whose stay is threatened by our sanctions, says Läänemets.
Deportation threatened the Ingrian-Russian youth
One of the students threatened by Estonia’s residence permit policy was an Inger-Russian Daniil Martikainen-Jarlukovski20.
The expiration of the residence permit was taking him back to Russia. There, imprisonment or mobilization and sending to war awaited the young man who had been involved in opposition activities for years.
When the residence permit was not extended, Martikainen-Jarlukovski finally applied for asylum in Estonia. met him in his current hometown Tartu the other week. At that time, he had just received information about the positive asylum decision.
– I have settled in here really well. I plan to apply for Estonian citizenship and also participate in politics, says Martikainen-Jarlukovski, who gave the interview in fluent Estonian.
A new twist in the journey is the harassment of the Russian authorities towards those who change their citizenship. Estonia does not allow dual citizenship, so you have to get rid of your Russian citizenship first. Russia is trying to make this as difficult as possible.
In practice, renouncing citizenship can only be done by traveling to Russia – and putting oneself in the very danger one has fled.
Refuge is under a rock for dissidents as well
Although things went well for him personally, Martikainen-Jarlukovski does not fully understand Estonia’s strict residence permit and asylum policy.
You cannot get a residence permit or asylum even on the basis that a person opposes the Kremlin’s policy or that he does not want to go to war in Ukraine. The threat of persecution must be concretely and thoroughly proven, says Interior Minister Läänemets.
The final decision is made by the Estonian Police and Border Guard Agency PPA. Last year, the number of Russian asylum seekers in Estonia increased from fifteen in the previous year to 213. PPA made 38 positive decisions.
According to Martikainen-Jarlukovski, it is naive to think that young Russians would be able to change the system from within. So they should be allowed to stay in the west.
According to him, the majority of Russians support the current power apparatus and the war against Ukraine. Among the Russian population of Estonia, supporters of the war are a minority, but they are even more fanatical than in Russia.
– It’s probably related to the fact that they’ve never lived in modern Russia, and they don’t know what’s really happening there. They fan Russia comfortably from here in Estonia, says Daniil Martikainen-Jarlukovski.