Agence France-Presse,
Estonian excavators unearthed the bodies of Russian World War II soldiers on Monday, further angering Moscow as the dispute over the removal of a Soviet war memorial at the site in Tallinn intensified.
A visiting Russian parliamentary delegation, sent to the Estonian capital after the statue was removed last week, responded by calling on the Baltic state's government to resign.
The removal of the monument last week — a painful reminder for Estonians of 50 years of Soviet occupation — sparked riots which left more than 150 people injured and one Russian national dead.
Russians, including a substantial minority in Estonia, see the Bronze Soldier as a memorial to the millions of Red Army soldiers who died driving the Nazis out of the Baltic states in the closing stages of World War II.
Two of the leading delegates from the Russian lower house of parliament, or Duma, snubbed talks with the Estonian side and held their own press conference instead at the Russian embassy.
“The brutal handling of people by the Estonian police during disturbances on April 27 and 28 is unacceptable,” said Leonid Slutsky, deputy head of the Duma's foreign affairs committee.
“The government of an EU member state in the 21st century, which displays such gross violations of human rights, must stand down,” he said.
The Bronze Soldier was reerected Monday at a war cemetery elsewhere in the Estonian capital, as related unrest spread to Ukraine, where the interior ministry said police had fired tear gas to break up a demonstration.
Protesters threw eggs and balloons filled with paint at the Estonian embassy and posted stickers showing the Estonian flag with a swastika on it.
Anti-Estonian protests also continued in Russia, including in Moscow where the Estonian embassy has been “under siege” for four days, with staff barricaded inside and Russian police showing little sign of intervening.
Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves accused Russian authorities of doing nothing to end the siege.
“Nearly two dozen citizens of Estonia are in the embassy building, as if taken hostage,” he told AFP. “Other citizens of Estonia are blocked from entering the embassy.”
The row was further complicated later Monday when 12 coffins were unearthed at the site where the statue had originally stood. At least six of them contained the remains of Soviet soldiers.
“Our plan is to leave these remains where they are lying to allow us to complete work and documentation at the site,” said Ullar Lanno, head of the Estonian Forensic Medical Bureau.
Russia accused Estonia of betraying the memory of war dead by using heavy machinery to uncover the coffins.
“We're very concerned that there is an excavator at the exhumation site,” said Nikolai Kovalyov, head of the visiting Russian delegation.
“Why did the Estonian authorities need to use an excavator? This is a betrayal of the memory of those who fell in the war.”
“The talks held with our Russian counterparts today showed that we have serious differences over the interpretation of 50 years of history,” Estonian deputy parliamentary speaker Kristiina Ojuland told journalists.
Kovalyov, who heads the Duma's Committee on War Veterans' Affairs, hit out at the Estonian government and at the police for failing to provide medical assistance that he said could have saved the dead Russian.
“The Estonian government's activity in deciding to relocate the monument started the unrest, which had tragic consequences,” he said.
“The actions of the Estonian government have turned our bilateral relations upside down, and this demands a radical interference from us.”
“We will not accept the decision of the Estonian government to relocate the monument.”
Hundreds of cars jammed the streets of downtown Tallinn at noon Monday, blaring their horns in a noisy half-hour protest that broke two days of calm in the Estonian capital.
Police later banned all demonstrations in Tallinn and surrounding areas until May 11.
They said they were particularly concerned about possible protests on Tuesday, which is Labour Day, and May 9 when Russians celebrated the allied victory in Europe at the end of World War II.
Prime Minister Andrus Ansip made the removal of the statue a pillar of his campaign in the March 4 parliamentary election, which saw his government the first to be returned to power since independence from Moscow in 1991.
