The Estonian narrative

Scripps Howard: Russia is a terribly insecure nation, uncertain of its place among nations but certain that it is not getting the respect it deserves. That's why Russia clings so assertively to its narrative of World War II.
In that narrative, the Red Army, which did indeed suffer an overwhelmingly greater number of casualties, won that war with only peripheral help from Great Britain and the United States. The Soviet Union was a liberator, this version goes, and one of the nations liberated was Estonia.
That's why when the Estonians moved a statue called the Bronze Soldier, honoring the Red Army, to a nearby military cemetery, Moscow erupted in rage at what it saw as desecration and ingratitude. Its anger was almost childish -- blustery threats to cut off trade, travel and energy supplies, government-sponsored gangs threatening Estonia's embassy and diplomats and even a denunciation of the European Union and NATO for failing to stop the statue's removal.
On the anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War, Estonia's prime minister, defense minister and a representative of the Western diplomatic corps laid wreaths at the Bronze Soldier. The Russian ambassador declined to join them.
Valid narrative
Russia refused to entertain the notion that Estonia has an equally valid narrative of its own.
Estonia, after centuries of foreign rulers, became independent in 1920. It didn't last. In 1939, the Hitler-Stalin Pact, one of the most cynically corrupt bargains in history, was signed, and Estonia was awarded to the Soviet Union, which promptly occupied it and then abolished Estonia's independence in a rigged referendum.
Estonia became independent again with the breakup of the Soviet Union and promptly turned its back on Russia by joining NATO and the EU and evolved into a prosperous democracy on soil that Russian President Vladimir Putin insists is inhospitable to democracy.