In July, an incident in the village of Jõgeveste in Valga County came to the attention of Russia’s Investigative Committee. The Estonian War Museum had removed a monument erected over a mass grave of Soviet soldiers and exhumed the remains buried there so that they could be sorted and reinterred in a cemetery. Aleksandr Bastrykin, chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee, subsequently ordered officials to establish all the circumstances surrounding the monument’s removal and to provide a legal assessment of the actions of the Estonian officials involved.
At first glance, the order seems strange. Jõgeveste is in Estonia, the decision to relocate the monument was made by Estonian authorities, and the work was carried out by the Estonian War Museum. Russia’s Investigative Committee has no authority to question anyone there, demand documents or stop Estonian officials from acting. So what exactly is Russia investigating?
Jõgeveste is not an isolated case, but part of a practice that has developed over several years, through which Russia extends its interpretation of history into the territory of neighbouring countries. In this system, criminal proceedings are not merely a way to investigate a possible crime. They give Russia’s political accusations an official form, transform another country’s decision into an alleged criminal offence and make it possible to label the people responsible as suspects or wanted persons. The proceedings may be impossible to enforce in Estonia, but that does not mean they have no purpose or impact.
Relocation becomes “desecration”
According to post-war records, 795 Soviet soldiers were buried in the Jõgeveste mass grave, 726 of whom have been identified by name. The monument was relocated as part of Estonia’s wider programme to remove symbols of the occupying regime from public spaces and to rebury human remains from burial sites in suitable cemeteries. According to the Estonian War Museum, the Jõgeveste monument had already been removed several weeks before Russia reacted. In July, the remains were being sorted in preparation for reburial. An ERR report confirmed that the remains had neither disappeared nor been taken to an unknown location.
The Russian Embassy in Tallinn did not describe the work as preparation for reburial, but as “state-sponsored vandalism”. The embassy stressed that the operation had been carried out away from public attention, called it an attempt to rewrite the shared history of Russia and Estonia, and claimed that no information was available about the future of either the monument or the remains. The language became even harsher in a subsequent statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry. Maria Zakharova described the monument’s removal as sacrilegious, claimed that the fate of the remains was unknown and issued an official protest to the Estonian chargé d’affaires in Moscow.
This is not simply a dispute over whether to use the word “relocation” or “destruction”. A monument, a burial site and human remains are three different things. In Russia’s official narrative, however, they merge into one. Removing a monument becomes the destruction of a mass grave, while exhuming remains for reburial becomes their disappearance. The result is an image of Estonia not as a country reorganising its public spaces and burial sites, but as one waging war against the dead.
The official statement by Russia’s Investigative Committee continued the same narrative. Bastrykin did not immediately open a criminal case over Jõgeveste. Instead, he ordered the committee, together with the Foreign Ministry, to establish the circumstances and provide a legal assessment of the actions of Estonian officials. The distinction matters, but the pattern is familiar from previous cases. First, another country’s decision is declared an act of historical vandalism. The Investigative Committee then launches a preliminary inquiry, and some cases are eventually formalised as criminal proceedings.
Russian law reaches across borders
Russia created a specific legal basis for such proceedings in 2020. In April of that year, Article 243.4 was added to the Russian Criminal Code, covering the destruction, damage or desecration of military graves and monuments erected in honour of defenders of the Fatherland. What makes the law unusual is that it does not apply only to sites located within Russia. Under Article 243.4, criminal liability also extends to military graves and monuments outside Russia’s borders.
Some people in Prague regarded the statue of Marshal Ivan Konev as a symbol of communist rule.
The law was adopted amid a fierce dispute between Russia and the Czech Republic over the statue of Marshal Ivan Konev. In April 2020, Prague’s District 6 authorities removed the statue, which had been erected in 1980, from its public location so that it could be transferred to a museum. Russia’s Investigative Committee then opened a criminal case, even though the monument belonged to Prague 6 and the local authorities had acted in accordance with Czech law. The new Russian law provided for a prison sentence of up to five years for such an act.
The Konev case demonstrated what Russia seeks to achieve through its extraterritorial memory law. When decisions are made about the meaning and fate of monuments, Russia does not fully recognise the authority of the country in whose territory they stand. In the Russian interpretation, a Soviet war memorial becomes an object over which Moscow retains special decision-making rights, even decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A lawful decision by a municipality or national government is no longer treated as an independent choice concerning historical memory, but as a potential crime against Russian history.
In spring 2026, Russia expanded the category of memorials protected under criminal law even further. Article 243.4 of the Criminal Code was extended to cover burial sites and memorials dedicated to “victims of the genocide of the Soviet people”, including sites located outside Russia. At the same time, Article 354.1 made the public denial or approval of this genocide, as well as insulting the memory of its victims, a criminal offence. This is therefore not an isolated exception created during a single dispute over a monument in 2020, but a gradually developing system in which Russia’s state-approved interpretation of history is protected by criminal law.
Individual cases become a system
Such proceedings became much more frequent after Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine. In April 2022, the Russian Investigative Committee announced that it had opened five criminal cases concerning the alleged desecration of Soviet war memorials in Estonia, Lithuania and Bulgaria. The committee did not treat these cases as offences or political disputes falling under the jurisdiction of the countries concerned, but as matters subject to Russian criminal law. Events in different countries were combined into a single narrative about an attack on the memory of Soviet soldiers.
In August of the same year, Russia opened a criminal case over the removal of the Victory Monument in Riga. The Latvian parliament had created a legal basis for removing the monument, and Riga City Council had decided to demolish it. In the Russian proceedings, however, a decision made under Latvian law became a criminal offence, and the people responsible had to be identified. Investigations and proceedings later followed concerning monuments in other Latvian cities, Poland and several other European countries.
The Russian Investigative Committee’s own figures demonstrate the scale of these proceedings. In May 2025, Aleksandr Bastrykin said that the committee was handling 21 criminal cases covering 167 alleged incidents involving the desecration, destruction or damage of Soviet military graves and memorials in 15 European countries. Within these cases, 253 foreign nationals had been charged in absentia. Bastrykin’s figures show that Russia no longer treats disputes over monuments as isolated cases, but has turned them into an extensive cross-border system of criminal proceedings.
The cases are not presented as separate decisions shaped by different circumstances, such as Soviet occupation, the redesign of local public spaces or the desire to rebury war casualties in a cemetery. The Investigative Committee combines them into a single campaign of “destroying historical memory”.
This consolidation is useful for propaganda purposes. A memorial covered in graffiti, a statue moved to a museum, a relocated monument and remains respectfully reinterred in a cemetery are all given the same meaning. They are described as “desecration”, “destruction” or “the justification of fascism”. The differences between the causes and circumstances of the individual cases disappear, replaced by a consistent story about a hostile Europe attacking the Soviet Union’s victory and the memory of those who died for it.
A symbolic investigation can lead to a wanted notice
Russia has very limited ability to gather evidence in Estonia or bring local officials before a court. This does not mean, however, that the proceedings are entirely without consequences.
In February 2024, it emerged that the Russian Interior Ministry had placed Estonia’s then prime minister, Kaja Kallas, and State Secretary Taimar Peterkop on its wanted list. Lithuania’s then culture minister, Simonas Kairys, had also been listed, along with dozens of former Latvian MPs and local government representatives from several Baltic states. Russia justified the move by citing the removal of monuments erected in honour of Soviet soldiers. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described their actions as “the desecration of historical memory”. According to Reuters, Kallas was the first serving head of a foreign government to be placed on Russia’s wanted list.
This is where an apparently symbolic criminal case begins to have concrete consequences for an individual. Russian authorities cannot arrest Kallas or Peterkop in Estonia, but they would risk detention if they travelled to Russia. Russia may also attempt to extend the wanted notice through international channels or seek cooperation from another country. A Russian domestic wanted notice is not the same as an Interpol international arrest notice, however, and Interpol is prohibited from intervening in matters of a political nature. Nevertheless, the existence of such proceedings forces those concerned to assess travel risks even outside Russia.
More important still is the political function of the proceedings. Placing someone on a wanted list allows Russia to portray the head of government of a democratic country not as a political opponent, but as a criminal. The argument is no longer about what a Soviet monument means in Estonia or where it is appropriate to bury those killed in war. Russia first defines the correct interpretation of history, then criminalises any departure from it and finally uses the criminal proceedings themselves as proof that a crime has been committed.
The proceedings do not need to end in a verdict
The purpose of an ordinary criminal investigation is to establish whether a crime has been committed, gather evidence and, where necessary, bring the case to court. The value of the proceedings Russia opens over monuments in foreign countries, however, does not depend on whether they ever reach a courtroom.
The launch of a preliminary inquiry or criminal case already serves several purposes. It gives the Foreign Ministry’s accusations an appearance of legal authority, generates new stories for Russian media, reinforces the use of criminal vocabulary to describe the removal of monuments and makes it possible to place specific individuals on wanted lists later. At the same time, it sends a warning to officials, museum employees and local politicians who make decisions concerning the Soviet legacy.
The proceedings also help Russia maintain the impression that it continues to represent all Soviet military graves and memorials, regardless of where they are located or how the local country experienced history. In this interpretation, Estonia is not an independent state that decides how to manage its public spaces and burial sites. It is a territory whose historical memory Moscow is entitled to supervise and whose officials may be judged under Russian law.
This is precisely why the relocation of the Jõgeveste monument reached Russia’s Investigative Committee. Russia is not investigating only the fate of one monument. It is asserting its claimed right to determine how the Second World War must be remembered beyond Russia’s own borders. When a local decision does not fit that interpretation, criminal law is used to turn a political disagreement into a crime.
In the Jõgeveste case, the proceedings may go no further than Bastrykin’s order and another statement from the Investigative Committee. Previous cases nevertheless show that such actions should not be dismissed as merely grotesque theatre. A case created by Russia may be unenforceable in Estonia, but it can still be used to portray the actions of the Estonian state as criminal, label its decision-makers as wanted persons and present Russia’s own interpretation of history as the only legally acceptable truth.
