Russian Federation and Estonia in border crossing spy exchange

“On September 26, Estonian special service officer Eston Kohver, who was convicted in Russia for espionage, was exchanged for Aleksei Dressen, a former officer of Estonia’s security police, who has been serving a sentence for giving secret data to the Russian FSB”, said a statement carried by Russian news agencies.

Estonia has maintained that Kohver was kidnapped from inside Estonia, while Russia claimed that he was found with arms and cash on the Russian side of the border while spying.

Kohver’s case had provoked a diplomatic row: Estonia and the European Union said he had been abducted from Estonian soil last September in a cross-border raid, a charge Russian Federation denied.

Estonian Interior Minister Hanno Pevkur and the ISS held a press conference in Tartu, which was also attended by ISS chief Arnold Sinisalu, and Kohver himself, the Estonian Public Broadcasting reported.

In a scene reminiscent of the Cold War, or a spy thriller, Russian Federation and Estonia have exchanged spies on a bridge linking the two countries above the Piusa River in a remote forest near Lake Peipus. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) reportedly said he had been passing information about British and USA spies to Moscow.

Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas, who turned 36 on Saturday, said the phone call from Pevkur on the release of Kohver was “the best birthday present he could have imagined”.

The next day he appeared in a Moscow court charged with espionage, possession of secret recording equipment, illegal border crossing and possession and smuggling of a firearm.

Saturday’s swap followed a deterioration in relations between the two countries, which have also been strained by Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea.

Dressen was arrested at Tallinn airport along with his wife as he waited to board a plane to Moscow carrying what prosecutors described as classified documents. He was sentenced to 16 years for treason.