HELSINKI (AP) – Estonia’s foreign intelligence agency said on Wednesday that Russia has a COVID-19 pandemic to weaken unity in the West, which would help Moscow play a more prominent role in international affairs and would lead to the “diminishing of Western influence on the world stage.”
The Kremlin believes that the pandemic will force Western nations to focus on domestic politics and economic problems and facilitate the emergence of populist and extremist movements, said the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service in its annual report.
“For its part, Russia is prepared to add fuel to the flames to encourage these trends,” the report states. “Therefore, in 2021 it will once again see Russian-influenced operations designed to create and deepen divisions within and between Western societies, even at the EU (European Union) level.”
The authors of the 79-page document said Russia’s strategy is likely to include attempts to discredit COVID-19 vaccines developed in Western countries, especially the one made by the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca. Russian propaganda has labeled the vaccine that AstraZeneca developed with Oxford University in England as a “monkey vaccine.”
“With these defamation 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 promote its strategic ambition to be the first among the great powers to give a solution to the COVID-19 crisis, ”the report said.
The Russian government did not offer an immediate reaction to the intelligence report of Estonia, a former Soviet republic. Moscow has repeatedly denied similar Western claims of malicious intent in the past. He has also accused the West of trying to discredit the Russian-produced COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V.
Russia is actively promoting Sputnik V in several European nations, including Serbia. Hungary was the first and so far only nation in the European Union to acquire quantities of Sputnik V.
“The coronavirus epidemic has not diminished the actions and ambitions of the Putin regime (Russian President Vladimir). On the contrary, we can see how the pandemic is being used to make a profit for Russia’s domestic and foreign policy, “Estonian news agency director Mikk Marran told reporters at a news conference in Tallinn, the capital. of the country.
Addressing the new U.S. leadership and President Joe Biden, the report said it is likely that Russia’s agenda toward Washington will not change significantly and will continue to be “largely confronted.”
Estonia’s relations with neighboring Russia have remained cold since 1991, when the 1.3 million-strong Baltic nation and its neighbors, Latvia and Lithuania, regained their independence amid the fall of Russia. Soviet Union. The three countries have since joined NATO and the European Union.
While focusing mainly on events in Russia or neighboring countries such as Belarus and Ukraine, the report also discussed events in China. He said Beijing’s ambitious plan to become the world leader in technology “poses significant security threats” to the rest of the world.
Next-generation 5G mobile networks, advanced satellite navigation technology, cloud services and artificial intelligence are listed in the report as examples of where China has or expects to play a key global role. .
“China’s leadership has a clear goal of making the world dependent on Chinese technology,” the document states.
The report’s authors also warned Estonia’s leadership that the country’s integration “into China’s autonomous technological ecosystem makes Estonia vulnerable and dependent on China”.
Earlier, Estonia banned Huawei, the world’s leading 5G technology provider, from supplying technology and equipment to the government, alleging security concerns.