Euronews spoke with Russians living in Estonia, who are eligible to vote in the EU elections, regarding their priorities and challenges for the upcoming polls.
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00:00 Nearly 300,000 Russians live in Estonia.
00:04 They regularly vote in elections, including the upcoming EU ones.
00:09 Russian speakers usually vote for Russian-speaking candidates.
00:13 Jan Atom is one of the most popular among them.
00:17 The first thing we need is so-called political nations.
00:20 We don't have it in Estonia.
00:22 In Estonia we measure it by DNA, so to say.
00:25 I absolutely refuse to make Russian-speaking children in Estonia
00:32 to be somehow linked to what Putin is doing.
00:37 Jan Atom's supporters are rather pro-European
00:40 and distance themselves from Russia's actions and aims.
00:44 The solidarity of the European Union and refugees,
00:47 and now this military situation.
00:49 I feel that if it wasn't for the support of the EU, we wouldn't have gone far from Soviet times.
00:58 Young Estonians coming from Russian families
01:03 want above all to build bridges between the ethnic groups in the country.
01:08 The candidate that I'm going to vote for
01:12 represents and understands also Russian-speaking minority struggles,
01:17 challenges and opportunities,
01:20 and doesn't just disregard it as something that has to be integrated somewhere,
01:24 but actually sees this as a whole picture that actually we integrate on both ways.
01:29 There are also pro-Russian voices in the country,
01:33 like Ivo Petersson, an MEP candidate who is now in prison.
01:38 Party or movement which is very, very friendly to Putin.
01:45 And the irony is that the main candidate,
01:48 or actually I think he's the only candidate for this party,
01:52 is waiting for the court in pretrial detention right now,
01:59 because there is a charge against him for cooperating with Russian special services.
02:07 However, not every Russian will be able to vote in the upcoming EU elections.
02:12 Part of the Russian diaspora in Estonia
02:15 includes the ones who, despite the years spent in the country,
02:18 do not have Estonian citizenship.
02:20 Magdalena Khadovnik from the Estonian-Russian border in Narva for Euronews.
02:25 [INAUDIBLE]