Samuel Hanafin

Odesa is mostly Russian-speaking and sometimes thought to be more pro-Russian than other parts of Ukraine, but there isn’t a straightforward link between language and loyalty. When I raised the question of a potential backlash against Ukrainisation in Odesa, a Belgian diplomat was reminded of the way the French talk about Belgium. ‘There is something about multilingual countries that eludes the imperial mindset,’ he said, ‘French, British or Russian.’

For the last six months I’ve been working for Solidarités International, a French NGO. It’s one of the many organisations that have been hit by Donald Trump’s executive order freezing humanitarian aid for ninety days. In 2023 the US government provided $72 billion of international aid, around 40 per cent of the global total. From the comparatively shabby three-storey building in Paris where I work (L’Oréal’s headquarters are next door), SI employs more than three thousand staff to provide water and sanitation in at least 25 countries. Its annual turnover is almost $200 million but it relies on state-funded, project-by-project allocations, rarely for periods of more than two years, nearly half of which are disbursed by Washington.

The next legislative elections in Estonia will be in 2027, and it would be a stretch to gauge the future balance of power from the results of yesterday’s European elections. Voter turnout is much lower than in national elections. Isamaa has emerged as the clear victor and is now well positioned, if it stays its current course, to steer future coalitions further to the right. More nationalist posturing at the expense of Estonia’s Russian-speaking communities will probably follow.

The Russian Embassy in Tallinn is an art nouveau building on Pikk Street in the old city. There are Ukrainian flags and placards with anti-Putin slogans opposite the entrance, the layers of posters and graffiti providing a rough chronology of events in Russia and Ukraine since February 2022. More recent additions include votive candles and portraits of Alexei Navalny. Estonia has no tanks or planes to send to Ukraine, but the country has committed the equivalent of 3.6 per cent of its GDP in aid, making it by far the biggest donor per capita. It joined Nato in 2004, along with the other Baltic states, and its intelligence reports on Russia’s hybrid warfare often make headlines in Western media.