TALLINN, Estonia — A statue of a Red Army soldier at the heart of last week's deadly riots in Estonia was re-erected at a military cemetery in the capital Monday, overlooking dozens of Russian war graves.
The cemetery will also be the new resting place of Red Army soldiers being exhumed from a downtown memorial. Archaeologists excavating the grave said they had found nine coffins by Monday, but had not yet opened them.
The bronze soldier's removal from the downtown memorial last week provoked sharp criticism from Moscow and rioting in Estonia — the worst since the Baltic country quit the Soviet Union in 1991.
One man was stabbed to death, more than 150 people were hurt and 1,100 were detained.
Ethnic Russians consider the exhumations and the statue's removal an insult to the Soviet Army, which pushed the Nazis out of Estonia in 1944. Some ethnic Estonians, however, see the monument as a bitter reminder of Soviet occupation.
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The dispute has further strained tense relations between Russia and Estonia and underscored long-standing complaints about the treatment of ethnic Russian minorities in ex-Soviet Baltic states. A group of visiting Russian lawmakers called on the Estonian government to resign.
Many Russian-speakers in Baltic countries now struggle to get education, deal with government offices and get jobs amid a resurgence in native languages and inroads by English.
Estonian authorities said they were increasingly uneasy about pro-Russian protests at Estonian embassies in Moscow and Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.
Protesters have all but blockaded the embassy in Moscow, erecting tents on an adjacent sidewalk, holding candle vigils, plastering cars with anti-Estonian stickers and passing out "Wanted" posters with pictures of the Estonian ambassador.
Estonia's Foreign Ministry sent a letter of protest to the Russian government, saying "the lives and safety of the embassy staff and family members are directly endangered."
In Kiev, police used tear gas against some 50 Communist Party protesters after someone threw a small can of paint at the Estonian Embassy, the Interfax news agency reported. Police said no one was injured.
Russian officials called the statue's removal "blasphemous," and Estonia accused Russian media of spreading lies about the situation.
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