Member of the Riigikogu



Mr Oleksiy Goncharenko
Mr Arseni Puškarenko

Members of the Ukraine-Estonia Parliamentary Friendship Group
Tallinn, 25 September 2026
Dear colleagues,
Thank you for your letter. Estonia and Ukraine are close allies, and the Riigikogu Investigation Committee takes information concerning Russian influence operations extremely seriously. Precisely for that reason, serious allegations should be handled with precision, evidence and through the proper institutions.
First, there appears to be a misunderstanding about the role of our Committee. The Riigikogu Investigation Committee is a parliamentary body established to examine the extent, financing, methods and networks of Russian influence activity in Estonia. It is not a criminal investigative authority and does not conduct corruption or sanctions-violation investigations.
In Estonia, criminal investigations are conducted by the competent law-enforcement authorities under the supervision of the Prosecutor’s Office. The Internal Security Service (KAPO) has specific jurisdiction over corruption involving senior state and local government officials and over national-security offences; other criminal matters fall to the Police and Border Guard Board or other competent investigative authorities.
There is also no lack of a legal channel for transferring evidence from Ukraine to Estonia.
Estonia and Ukraine have had since 1995 a bilateral Treaty on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil and Criminal Matters. It expressly provides for mutual legal assistance, the transfer of evidence and pre-trial materials, and requests to institute criminal proceedings. Communication takes place through the Ministries of Justice and the Prosecutor’s Offices.
Your letter states that the material in your possession has already been formally submitted to competent Ukrainian authorities. If those authorities consider any of it relevant to a possible offence in Estonia, we have every confidence that they know how to transmit it to their Estonian counterparts. Estonian and Ukrainian law-enforcement and security services have well-established professional channels of co-operation.
What causes considerably more concern is the language of your letter.
You allege that an Estonian businessman has “bought” the media, that Estonian senior officials are under his influence and, in the accompanying public statement, that Eesti Ekspress/Delfi is disseminating material written by Russian FSB “curators”. These are exceptionally serious accusations against Estonian democratic institutions and independent journalists. No evidence supporting them has been presented to us.
A disagreement with investigative journalism is not evidence of a Russian hybrid operation.
The journalists whose work you attack, Holger Roonemaa and Oliver Kund, are among
Estonia’s most experienced investigative reporters. Roonemaa was named Estonian
Journalist of the Year in 2021. Both are multiple recipients of Estonia’s leading investigative journalism award, the Bonnier Prize; in 2025 they shared it for an investigation into the activities of a serving Estonian minister. Kund has worked for more than a decade on corruption, money laundering and national-security issues. Roonemaa’s investigations into Russian influence operations have themselves received major international recognition.
Describing their reporting as an FSB operation without producing evidence is therefore not merely an attack on two journalists. It is an allegation against the independence of one of Europe’s freest media environments.
Some factual precision would also help.
Lithuania did not declare Mr Ossinovski “a threat to national security”. The Lithuanian authorities blocked two planned Lithuanian Railways contracts with Skinest Baltija as “not conforming to national security interests.” This was indeed a reference to Skinest business with Russian companies and happened in 2018, i-e. before Mr Ossinovski exited Russian businesses as he has said in an interview on Estonian TV: “We decided that we do not want to work in a state that shoots missiles against cities”
In Latvia, Mr Ossinovski is not “recognised as corrupt.” The Riga Regional Court did convict Mr Ossinovski in December 2025 of giving a bribe, fined him of EUR 151,700 and imposed a three-year prohibition on participation in public procurement. That judgment has been appealed and is not in force.
Regarding Estonia, according to the information available to us, the Estonian Internal Security Service has found no evidence that Mr Ossinovski has violated sanctions or that his companies currently conduct active business in Russia.

We and the relevant Estonian services are aware of Mr. Ossinovski's companies' previous business activities with Russian companies. After the full scale war began he cut off his business ties with Russian entities while his companies in Ukraine have provided considerable aid to the Ukrainian war effort as confirmed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
You label Mr Ossinovski “pro-Russian” and an “oligarch” and claim that he is “hiding behind his Estonian passport.” Mr Ossinovski has lived in Estonia since 1988, was granted Estonian citizenship for his support for Estonia’s independence and his son served as Estonia’s Minister of Education.
Ukrainians should know even better than Estonians that speaking Russian does not make a person pro-Russian. In Estonia, we defend all our citizens equally, regardless of their ethnic or linguistic background, and we consider ethnic slurs unacceptable.
If Ukrainian authorities possess new evidence suggesting otherwise, the obvious course is to provide it to the competent Estonian authorities through the channels described above.
Estonia hardly needs to be reminded of the dangers of Russian corruption and influence operations. Over a fifteen-year period, Estonia convicted twenty persons for collaboration with Russian intelligence services. In one GRU-directed hybrid operation alone, around ten people were arrested in Estonia in 2024. Our security services have spent decades identifying Russian agents, influence networks and hostile operations.

We take sanctions violations, particularly in the context of our steadfast support to Ukraine in its war against the Russian aggressors, very seriously. Since 2022 Estonia has conducted several hundred criminal investigations into sanctions violations. At the beginning of 2025 more than 100 such criminal cases were active simultaneously, and eight judgments had already entered into force. Estonian courts have imposed both custodial sentences and substantial financial penalties, including six-figure corporate fines and confiscation of sanctions-related assets.
Nor do allegations of systemic corruption of the Estonian state or media sit comfortably with objective international assessments. In the 2026 World Press Freedom Index Estonia ranks
3rd of 180 countries. In Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, Estonia ranks 12th of 182 countries.
Estonia is not an oligarchic economy. One of the defining features of Estonia’s post-Soviet occupation transition was precisely that it avoided the emergence of oligarchs and state capture. Competitive and comparatively transparent privatisation, hard budget constraints, openness to foreign investment, low barriers to market entry and independent institutions prevented politically connected businessmen from acquiring control over strategic sectors and then converting economic power into political power. It is the conclusion reached by the IMF, OECD and academic studies of Estonia’s transition. Today the OECD describes Estonia as having minimal state interference in business and one of the most open trade and investment regimes in Europe, while the World Justice Project ranks Estonia 10th globally for rule of law.
We are fully aware that Ukraine is fighting a brutal war and that this profoundly affects the conditions in which its institutions and media operate. These figures are not cited to lecture Ukraine. They are cited because your letter chooses to lecture Estonia about corruption, compromised officials and media freedom while making extraordinarily serious accusations without providing evidence. We would have expected somewhat more intelligent handling of the issue from the Estonia-Ukraine Friendship Group of the Rada.
Estonia remains one of Ukraine’s closest supporters. Friendship, however, does not require us to accept unsupported accusations against our institutions, security services or journalists.
If you have evidence of Russian influence activity relevant to the mandate of our Committee, please provide it and we will examine it seriously. If you have evidence of corruption, sanctions violations or other criminal conduct, please provide it to the competent Ukrainian authorities so that it can be transmitted to their Estonian counterparts under the established legal procedures.
But allegations that Estonia’s senior officials and independent media have been corrupted by Russia require evidence. They cannot be established simply by repeating them publicly.

With respect,

Eerik-Niiles Kross