The Legacy of Russian Misinformation in Estonia
The TV channel fighting Russian disinformation in Estonia
As Estonia grapples with integrating its Russian and Estonian populations, the influence of Russian state media is still felt in the country and is accused of spreading mistrust and disinformation.
The Estonian government are encouraging initiatives to integrate the Russian-speaking community into Estonian society. ‘The problem is that the Estonian language just isn’t used here. At work we only speak Russian’, says Dmitri, an engineer living in the border town of Narva. Russian-speaking people in Estonia are less likely to get vaccinated than ethnic Estonians; ‘when you turn on the Russian TV and are told every day that Western vaccines are harmful, this is going to have an impact’, says Katri Raik, mayor of Narva. A new Russian-Estonian television channel, ETV+, has been set up to provide the Russian-speaking population with news free from Putin’s influence. The channel was created ‘in order to inform them and give more objective local information about what is happening in Estonia in order to create an alternative to Russian media’, says Ekaterina Taklaja, the editor-in-chief.
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