Estonia report: Russia bets on COVID-19 weakening the West for own rise in international affairs – World News , NewsGater

File image of Russian President Vladimir Putin. AP

Helsinki: Estonia’s foreign intelligence agency said on Wednesday that Russia has the COVID-19 pandemic to weaken unity in the West, which would help Moscow gain a more prominent role in international affairs and lead to a “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, the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service said in its annual report.

“For its part, Russia is prepared to add fuel to the flames to further these trends,” the report states. “Therefore, in 2021 you will see again Russian-influenced operations designed to create and deepen divisions within and between Western societies, including the EU (European Union).”

The authors of the 79-page document said Russia’s strategy would likely include attempts to discredit COVID-19 vaccines developed in western countries, especially the one manufactured by the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca. Russian propaganda has labeled the vaccine that AstraZeneca developed with the University of Oxford 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 in the world market and, on the other, to promote its strategic ambition to show itself as the first among the great powers to solve COVID-19 crisis, ”the report said.

The Russian government did not offer an immediate reaction to the intelligence report from Estonia, a former Soviet republic. Moscow has repeatedly denied similar Western claims of evil intentions in the past. He has also accused the West of trying to discredit Russian production. COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V.

Russia is actively promoting Sputnik V in various 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 The epidemic has not diminished the actions and ambitions of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s regime. On the contrary, we can see how there is an attempt to use the pandemic to reap profits for (Russia’s) domestic and foreign policy, ”Estonian agency director general Mikk Marran told reporters during a press conference in Tallinn , the capital of the country.

Addressing the new US leadership and President Joe Biden, the report said Russia’s agenda toward Washington is unlikely to change significantly and will remain “largely contentious.”

Estonia’s relations with neighboring Russia have remained cold since 1991, when the Baltic nation of 1.3 million and its neighbors Latvia and Lithuania regained their independence amid the fall of the Soviet Union. Since then, the three countries have joined NATO and the European Union.

Although it mainly focuses on events in Russia or neighboring countries such as Belarus and Ukraine, the report also discussed developments 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 were listed in the report as examples of where China has or hopes 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 technology ecosystem makes Estonia vulnerable and dependent on China.”

Estonia previously banned China’s Huawei, the world’s leading 5G technology provider, from supplying technology and equipment to the government, citing security concerns.