Putin Criticizes Estonia Memorial Relocation

MOSCOW — President Putin yesterday denounced Estonia's decision to relocate a Soviet war memorial.

Defying E.U. pleas to ease the situation, the Russian president used the annual Victory Day parade in Red Square to accuse the Baltic state of committing an insult that could damage international relations.

"Those who are trying today to desecrate memorials to war heroes are insulting their own people and sowing enmity and new distrust," he told thousands of veterans and soldiers who had gathered to commemorate the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Mr. Putin's comments seem set to inflame a feud that has drawn renewed allegations of Russian heavy-handedness toward its former Soviet neighbors.

The Kremlin has already accused Estonia of "blasphemy" and "indulging neofascists" after the monument and the remains of 14 Soviet soldiers were moved from the center of the capital, Tallinn, to the city's main war cemetery last month.

The Russian parliament has called on Mr. Putin to sever diplomatic relations and consider an economic blockade, while Kremlin-backed youth movements have barricaded the Estonian embassy in Moscow and threatened to blow it up.

Several supermarket chains have also pulled Estonian goods from their shelves.

Estonia, which sees the monument less as a symbol of liberation than as a reminder of two Soviet invasions and half a century of occupation, insists that the relocation was carried out respectfully.

Kremlin critics say this is in stark contrast to how many war memorials are treated in Russia itself. Several have been destroyed in recent years, and last month controversy erupted over a decision to exhume the remains of six Red Army pilots in order to widen a Moscow motorway.