Russian-Estonian relations: a medium-term forecast

Abstract

This article shows why the non-existent political dialogue between Russia and Estonia will hardly develop in the next five years and why Estonia can lose its significance for the Russian foreign policy rhetoric and Russian mass media. This conclusion is drawn from a medium-term forecast about the changing role of Estonia in Russian foreign policy. The forecast is based on the scenario methodology, which suggests that the modern means of political forecasting make it possible to make conclusions not about the future states of political phenomena, but rather about the trends of current states, which are called scenarios. The article describes the four possible scenarios of changes in the role of Estonia in Russian foreign policy that are evaluated from the perspective of the development of Russian-Estonian relations and factors affecting the probability of each scenario. It is shown that any change in the role of Estonia in Russian foreign policy depends not only on the specific actions of the Estonian elite, for example their readiness to change their position on the participation of Russian-speaking population in the democratic decision-making process or the evaluation of controversial events of the past, but also on the meaning that will be attached to these actions by the Russian elite.