At the beginning of the program, which touched on the government's ongoing budget cuts, host Andres Kuusk asked whether the Internal Security Service (ISS) had also been affected.

"When you consider the adversary we're dealing with, there are always more needs than resources. On the other hand, the Ministry of the Interior and the government as a whole have supported comprehensive national defense, including our capabilities, given today's security situation. So the situation isn't that bad. We have enough funding to manage for now," said Mari-Liis Tori, deputy director general of the ISS.

According to Tori, Russia tries to recruit people for its purposes through social media by approaching them in third countries and even on its own territory.

"We advise against traveling to Russia unless absolutely necessary because we simply cannot protect our citizens there. It's not a country governed by the rule of law," she said.

Speaking about the arrest of Oleg Bessedin, Tori said his case posed a threat to national security. "There must have been sufficient grounds based on the information gathered to act now," she noted.

She recalled that Bessedin was mentioned in the ISS's annual report as early as 2010. "At the time, we wrote that he was producing propaganda content for Russian TV channels against Estonia. /.../ We use the annual report as a preventive tool to highlight movements or individuals whose activities may pose a threat to security," said Tori.

She explained that Russian intelligence services have traditionally taken an interest in areas related to national defense, such as the Defense Forces, the Defense League, law enforcement agencies and critical infrastructure.

"This isn't unique to Estonia. Russian intelligence views the entire West and Europe as a single operational theater and their task is to collect information about what is happening within that theater," she said.

Tori added that their interest isn't limited to state secrets — sometimes it's simply about the location of certain facilities.

Asked how many people in Estonia genuinely support Vladimir Putin, Tori said it's very difficult to say.

"We've been asked that before. We don't monitor political sentiment. For instance, whether and who someone votes for if they're a Russian citizen and go to vote at the embassy — that's very hard to measure. It's difficult to say what those support percentages truly are," she said.

Estonia recently restricted the voting rights of Russian and Belarusian citizens.

"That was a legal-political decision. At the time, we gave our assessment and now the decision has been made," Tori commented.

If a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia is eventually reached, Tori said it will be crucial to ensure that individuals who fought in the war of aggression against Ukraine are barred from traveling to Estonia or Europe in the future.

"We assess this as a security threat and, more broadly, likely also a threat to public order. We've heard how such individuals have been recruited to the front by Russia, whether through prisons or those with criminal backgrounds, people from very different cultural layers. We certainly shouldn't reward them with the opportunity to travel to Europe," Tori said.

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