A funeral for the two Estonian soldiers killed in Afghanistan last month was held at the Tapa army base on July 4. President Toomas Hendrik Ilves posthumously bestowed the Gold Cross of the Order of the Cross of the Eagle 's a high military decoration 's upon Sgt. Kalle Torn, 24, and Jr. Sgt. Jako Karuks, 33, who died in a missile attack in southern Afghanistan on June 23. Three other soldiers remain in hospital care in the United Kingdom, while one soldier with light wounds requested to continue serving in Afghanistan. The Estonian Defense Force has dispatched a team of mine clearance experts and a vehicle to replace the fallen troops.
Estonia has reburied the remains of eight Red Army soldiers exhumed during the removal of the Bronze Soldier monument. The remains were reinterred at the Defense Forces Cemetery in Tallinn during a ceremony on July 3. A large number of ministers, diplomats and veterans' organizations were in attendance. However in a symbolic aside the Russian ambassador to Estonia, Nikolai Uspensky, refused to attend. Uspensky said he would take part in a separate ceremony with Russian war veterans at a later time. Four other bodies have been returned to relatives in Russia and Ukraine. Relatives of the eight soldiers buried in the cemetery have not been located. A temporary grave marker, in Cyrillic lettering, identifies the location of each grave.
Estonia has purchased a 93 million kroon (6 million euro) property near Hyde Park in London to house its embassy. The building, bought at auction on April 2, was considered necessary because diplomats were unhappy with the size of the current embassy. The new building will not be occupied until 2009 following a refurbishment.
A competition to design an Estonian Freedom Monument attracted 44 entries by the July 2 deadline. The Ministry of Defense called for artists to design a memorial to commemorate the War of Independence, from 1918 to 1920. Once completed, the monument will stand on Harju street in central Tallinn. Several attempts have previously been made to erect such a structure, but were abandoned because of political indecision or public opposition.
A young Russian woman became the latest in a string of activists to be expelled from Estonia for attempting to stage a protest at Tonismagi, the former site of the Bronze Soldier. Police said the woman, aged 18, was found donning a Red Army uniform and was planning to stand guard on the site of the removed monument on July 2. Several young people have now been expelled for carrying out similar protests, which were organized by the Russian youth movement Nashi (Ours). The Citizenship and Migration Board said those who had entered from Russia on tourist visas would be banned from returning for ten years, and would be prohibited from entering wider Europe once Estonia joined the Schengen zone.
