Estonia's revulsion for Russia is similar to feelings growing in Kenyan villages

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Anti-Putin poster on a street in Tallinn, Estonia. [Wellingtone Nyongesa, Standard]

There is clearly no love lost between Estonia and Russia. A walk through the country’s capital city, Tallinn, sends home an inherent message that anything leaning towards Moscow is unwanted here.

Several Kenyan families who today mourn sons duped into serving in the Russian army and later dying as war expendables could easily find a common bond here. These families are now suffering the same experience Estonians lived through during the many years of Russian rule, first under the Tsarist regimes and later under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

The post-1917 overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II was responsible for ending Estonia’s 1918 independence, replacing it with the red gospel of communism under Vladimir Lenin, later aided by Josef Stalin and the later-day strongmen who called the shots from the Kremlin until 1991.