The persistent external threat from Estonia’s closest neighbor, the ambiguous foreign policy of the United States as a guarantor of Estonian independence, combined with several years of economic crisis, are forcing Estonia to seek new allies and new sources of funding, including new export markets. Rising defense spending amid the war in Ukraine means that next year the state budget deficit will amount to around one billion euros. Public dissatisfaction is growing, unlike the approval ratings of the ruling parties. Against this backdrop, tensions have emerged within Estonia’s political elite.
In early December, a scandal erupted in Estonia over a state delegation’s visit to Kazakhstan in November. Estonia’s ambassador to Kazakhstan, Jaap Ora, was forced to resign for a highly sensitive reason: he had asked Estonian President Alar Karis to soften the wording in his speech regarding the war Russia is waging in Ukraine. The president heeded this advice, and the topic of Russian aggression was ultimately barely addressed in his speech. Since members of the delegation were aware of the ambassador’s recommendation, the incident sparked heated debate in diplomatic circles and led to the resignation of the senior diplomat.
The elite against the president
President Alar Karis himself also came under harsh criticism. The head of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, Marko Mihkelson (Reform Party), stated that the president’s “quiet diplomacy” had led to a clear rift between him and the official policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Kalev Stoicescu (Estonia 200), a member of the parliamentary national defense committee, went further, questioning whether the visit to Kazakhstan was necessary at all. “What was its real purpose? Estonia was hardly going to publicly convince Kazakhstan that Russia is an aggressor state and that Putin is a villain — they already know this, but in any case cannot or do not want to acknowledge it publicly,” he wrote on social media. Stoicescu also said that responsibility for the unsuccessful performance on the international stage should not have fallen solely on Estonia’s ambassador to Kazakhstan.
“The most harmful approach, including in domestic politics, is when there are institutions and individuals in the Republic of Estonia who are effectively beyond criticism — whoever they may be,” the MP said, making a transparent hint at President Karis.
Karis also poured oil on the fire with a statement to Finnish journalists suggesting that the European Union could help Hungary pay a fine to Russia if Budapest agreed to sever its energy contracts with the aggressor. “It is inconceivable that states which themselves have taken decisive steps to stop feeding Russia’s war machine would now start contributing to Russia’s economy in the form of penalty payments on Hungary’s behalf,” Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna responded to the president’s idea.
Karis responded to the escalating scandal in an unconventional way, posting a quote on his personal social media page: “I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me “. The post caused, to put it mildly, bewilderment among Estonian politicians and the media.
Unsigned laws
Presidential elections in Estonia will take place next year, and it is already more or less clear that Alar Karis will not run. One reason is that he is not supported by the ruling coalition, which also has other grounds for dissatisfaction with him: during his presidency, Karis has refused to sign several laws key to the government.
The most high-profile of these was a law that would have led to the closure of the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. The bill provoked outrage among Russian-speaking residents and criticism from legal experts. The president deemed it unconstitutional; the country’s largest church was forced to change its name but continues to operate.
In December 2025, the president declined to approve another law significant for the Russian-speaking population that had been passed by the Riigikogu. In November, the Estonian parliament voted that starting next year only young people with at least B1-level proficiency in Estonian would be conscripted into the Estonian Defence Forces.
In theory, school graduates are expected to have command of the state language at this relatively low level; however, in the predominantly Russian-speaking northeast of Estonia, this seemingly basic requirement is far from always achievable. Despite the fact that all education in the country has theoretically been switched to the state language, much of it amounts to a Potemkin village: in Russian-speaking regions, residents do not actually speak it. The military has complained that lack of Estonian hampers effective training of conscripts and the performance of military service.
The reaction to the adoption of the new conscription law was heated and ambiguous. Some Russian speakers rejoiced on social media that they now had a fully legal way to avoid service in the Estonian army. Other Russian speakers were outraged that the state was destroying with its own hands one of the few functioning tools for integrating Russians into Estonian society. Some Estonians were angered that Russians had been granted leniency by being exempted from military duty. There were also those who questioned whether, under current geopolitical conditions, it was advisable to entrust weapons to Russian speakers at all.
President Karis dealt with the law decisively, refusing to sign it on the grounds that it contradicted the constitutional principle of equal treatment. This move earned him additional political points among the Russian-speaking population — as a politician who once again dared to challenge the Estonian mainstream. The reaction from coalition politicians was exactly the opposite. “Oh, here we go again. First it was the Russian church, now he objects to the requirement that conscripts know the state language,” commented Kalev Stoicescu, a member of the parliamentary National Defence Committee.
The Defence Committee ultimately decided to revise the law, while not abandoning the idea of including language requirements. “Time will tell what technical solution the Ministry of Defence and the Riigikogu come up with, but the goal remains the same: that those serving in the military know the language and understand what they are supposed to do, and that the Defence Forces no longer have to do work that others have failed to do,” commented committee member Raimond Kaljulaid.
Suddenly popular among the local Russians
The more Karis is criticized by the Estonian establishment, the greater the sympathy he receives from politicians representing the interests of the country’s Russian-speaking residents.
“We finally have a president with a firm character and his own convictions. And this actually benefits our democracy, because there is someone capable of resisting pressure from political elites who are completely detached from the people,” writes Member of Parliament and one of the country’s most popular Russian-speaking bloggers Aleksandr Chaplygin (Centre Party), who in foreign policy matters, for example, sympathizes with Viktor Orbán. More than 4,000 people liked the post.
“Karis should definitely be re-elected for a second term!” rejoiced Centre Party MEP Yana Toom after the president refused to approve the labour contract law passed by parliament. However, this is unlikely to happen, because Karis himself appears not to have such desire.
However, his critics are also unlikely to have a chance at re-election: the ratings of the ruling coalition remain critically low, and Estonia’s foreign and domestic policy will be shaped by other parties — including, likely, the largely representing the Russian-speaking electorate Centre Party and the right-wing, patriotic Fatherland. The candidacy of Estonia’s future president has yet to emerge on the horizon.
