Estonia Prosecutes Pro-Kremlin Blogger
Following up on my investigation into Estonia’s blueprint for defeating Russian aggression, I now report that the Baltic country is taking on pro-Russian media liars — handing the West another clue
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I have a prominent friend who has been very effective at exposing and defeating the worst and cruelest of the far-right policies in her community. She’s managed this for decades. During a speaking engagement, a local blogger came up to her and said: “I was just offered an enormous sum of money to trash you in the media. I turned it down, but someone else is going to take that money.”
As someone with full-time cyber stalkers taking aim at me for a decade, I often wondered why our laws for online abuse were so limply enforced. Online harms are real world harms, sustained psychological abuse and tortious interference are debilitating, but those like me, on the receiving end, learn to simply endure. Our enforcement agencies have gone to the dark side.
When the rare prosecution does occur, it generally involves a high-profile target, as with the case of Fred Gutenberg, whose tormentor was successfully prosecuted.
It was Gutenberg who encouraged me to go the FBI with my file, which I did, more than three years ago.
But the director of the FBI, who sued my podcast partner, is a troll writ large, a Russian propaganda superspreader more comfortable on QAnon podcasts and at keggers, than in halls of justice.
I recall watching JD Vance in the VP debated in 2024, horrified by the deference he was shown by Tim Walz, who normalized the Peter Thiel replicant. Vance was such a grave danger to democracy and in the debate, as he argued that the biggest danger to democracy was censorship, I was documenting how many people were streaming RT in that moment on his Rumble platform.
In a long ago forgotten headline in the Wall Street Journal, it was noted that “Peter Thiel and JD Vance invest in Rumble Video, a platform popular on political right”. Understand, Rumble was transformed into a venal Russian propaganda site. RT, banned in democratic nations for being an arm of Russian military intelligence, was free to stream on Rumble.
Rumble platforms Nazis. Literal Nazis.
And there was JD Vance, in front of the nation, minimizing Russia’s attack on America in 2016 as just “$500,000 worth of Facebook ads.” There he was, repeatedly claiming VP Kamala Harris is censoring free speech.
Why would he do that? What could he possibly have to gain? Why after a month of bombshells on Russian interference would he take the side of Russia? He did so just days after the US State Department declared that “covert influence activities are not journalism.”
Perhaps because on the very day he made that statement, while spitting lie after lie after lie to tens of millions of amnesiatic Americans, RT on Rumble had 23.9 million views of its livestream.
And what did we learn about the internationally banned RT, formerly Russia Today? According to the US State Department, the “Russian government embedded within RT an entity with cyber operational capabilities and ties to Russian intelligence. This cyber entity has focused primarily on influence and intelligence operations all over the world.”
That quote comes from a State Department fact sheet from September 13, 2024 titled: Alerting the World to RT’s Global Covert Activities.
So there, playing nice in front of America, was an enemy combatant, who platforms the most venal elements in society, while offering a safe harbor for Russian intelligence operations.
Estonia Prosecutes Pro-Kremlin Blogger
So as America enabled its freedoms to be exploited by Russian military intelligence and its useful idiots proxies, Estonia took a different approach.
As I wrote yesterday, Estonia offers a profoundly important blueprint — a “total defense” plan — on how to fight Russian aggression.
Estonians know that not only is national security jeopardized when Russian propagandists enter the body politic, but their very democracy is at risk.
Unlike the UK, US, and EU, Estonia doesn’t dither with its pro-Russian politicians, spies, and operatives. It doesn’t give its pro-Russian agitators a pass.
The Baltic country adopted a “zero tolerance for collaboration” policy, which means the state enforces strong anti-collaboration laws and indicts individuals — including financial backers — found to support Russian military forces and interests.
Not only does Estonia prosecute pro-Russian politicians for high treason, but the country also goes after Kremlin-aligned media operatives.
In 2025, an Estonian court sentenced a journalist with ties to Russian state media to six years in prison for treason. A Harju County District Court found that Svetlana Burceva collaborated with a reserve officer from Russia’s FSB security service in actions that threatened Estonia’s “independence and sovereignty.”
In investigating this, I also learned that Estonia is prosecuting a pro-Kremlin blogger.
In November 2025, Estonian authorities prosecuted and detained pro-Kremlin blogger and propagandist Oleg Besedin.
“Detained by the Estonian Internal Security Service (KAPO), Besedin is accused of engaging in activities against the Estonian state, cooperating with Russian intelligence services, participating in information influence operations, and violating international sanctions,” according to a United 24 report. The charges include: non-violent actions directed against the Republic of Estonia — a state crime harming independence and sovereignty and the violation of international sanctions. Investigators said he “operated as a Russian propagandist, repeatedly distributed content from EU-sanctioned Russian media outlets, and cooperated with Russian intelligence starting in 2022.” His trial is set to begin September 15, 2026.
To me, this is a fascinating development that the West must pay attention to. France continues to allow a pro-Russian billionaire to push Kremlin operatives on French citizens, including a former RT propagandist.
The world’s latest trillionaire spent the weekend stoking racial tensions abroad. If you are unfamiliar with Elon Musk’s backstory as useful idiot, start here:
Moldova prosecuted its version of Elon Musk — Ilan Shor — who interfered in the country’s election on behalf of Moscow, and who now is forced to live in Moscow in exile.
We just need to look further over the shores, always, for a way out of fascism taking root in America.
This never was about free speech. It was about whether or not we have the will to defend ourselves from threats to national security and sovereignty.
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