Reform MP: Tallinn paid 'millions' to detained blogger and associates
The City of Tallinn paid sums in excess of €6 million to Oleg Bessedin, recently detained on suspicion of anti-Estonian activity, MP Eerik-Niiles Kross (Reform) said.
The alleged payments were made from 2011 until recently; most of that time the Center Party was dominant in the city's government.
Bessedin was remanded in custody earlier this month. While sums of €800,000 were first mentioned last week by sitting Tallinn Mayor Jevgeni Ossinovski (SDE), Kross, deputy chair of the Riigikogu's anti-corruption committee, said the figure was nearly eight times that amount, including payments made to Bessedin's relatives, and including payments from Maardu municipality, next door to Tallinn and incorporating the port of Muuga.
The committee on Wednesday reviewed the sums paid in total to the accounts belonging to Bessedin and other individuals.
"It appears that the group of individuals we inquired about — all of them linked by the Internal Security Service or the media to Russian influencing activities — these legal entities and the individuals themselves have received more than six million euros from the city of Tallinn, in various forms since 2011," Kross said.
The committee had sent Tallinn and Maardu several information requests, asking for documentation concerning Bessedin and his associates from the last 15 years.
The committee's chair, however, stated that even the original figure quoted, €800,000, was inaccurate, as this was the sum total of money paid both to Bessedin's companies and those of his relatives.
"The originally cited figure of €800,000 is not actually correct. The amount is €275,000 over 15 years. It was visible that in certain city districts this volume was higher. Especially in the Lasnamäe district administration, where, for example, [fomer Center MP] Olga Ivanova ordered services from Bessedin for €38,000, [Current Center MP] Maria Jufereva-Skuratovski for €31,000, and [former Center Party deputy mayor] Vladimir Svet for nearly €12,000," Kovalenko-Kõlvart said.
The Internal Security Service (ISS) detained Bessedin on November 4. A day later the first-tier Harju County Court remanded him in custody for two months. The Prosecutor's Office suspects that at least since 2022 he has been acting in cooperation with individuals acting in the interests of Russian intelligence services and taking part in Russian information influence operations, including by repeatedly and intentionally distributing online content from sanctioned Russian media outlets, which is a violation of EU sanctions and considered a crime against the peace.
His activities are thought to date back around 20 years. Bessedin is a so-called gray passport-holder, meaning a person with no citizenship and so is neither a citizen of Estonia nor Russia. Bessedin's father, Aleksander, had recently been rehired by the City of Tallinn after losing his job during the restructuring of the Russian Cultural Center, Ossinovski said last week.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Mari Peegel
Source: 'Aktuaalne kaamera'
