Estonia's Public Prosecutor's Office has charged Svetlana Burceva, an Estonian citizen who wrote for Russian state-run media, with treason and violating international sanctions, the media outlet ERR reported on Aug. 6.
Burceva was arrested in March after it was revealed that she wrote for the Russian state sponsored Balt News —an arm of the Kremlin-run RT news outlet. Another RT-subsidiary, Sputnik Estonia, was shuttered for violating sanctions in 2019, but Burceva is accused of continuing to write for the outlet and its affiliates under a pseudonym.
The EU imposed sanctions against RT in March 2022, following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, Burceva, who became a naturalized Estonian citizen in 1994, knowingly violated sanctions.
Between 2019 and 2021, she completed a Master's degree at Sevastopol State University in occupied Crimea, where she reportedly "enrolled in a program on information and hybrid conflicts, supervised and directed by a former FBI counterintelligence officer and head of a private intelligence firm registered in Russia."
Prosecutors said that the program "aims to train international media workers and analysts to be at the forefront of combating hybrid threats Russia faces."
Upon completing her studies, Burceva reportedly wrote a book under different name, along with the program director, entitled "Hybrid War for the World," describing "a global hybrid war that Russia must win."
The book allegedly is intended to sow division in Estonia, prosecutors said.
A pre-trial investigation by the Estonian Internal Security Service (ISS) "concluded that Burceva could not be considered an independent, objective, and neutral journalist."
Russian state sponsored media outlets have been instrumental in promoting pro-Russian propaganda since the start of the full-scale invasion.
Estonia has long been concerned about undue influence from Russia, being on the far eastern flank of NATO and having a considerable ethnic Russian minority.
In a widely reported case earlier in 2024, an ethnic Russian professor at Estonia's University of Tartu was convicted of spying for his home country.
Nate Ostiller
(Updated: )
