Russia's Putin jabs at Estonia at WW2 parade

By Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin made a thinly veiled attack on neighbouring Estonia on Wednesday during a parade on Red Square marking the anniversary of the World War Two victory over Nazi Germany.

Estonia's removal of a Red Army monument last month from the centre of Tallinn infuriated the Kremlin and sparked violence in the Estonian capital as ethnic Russians rioted.

Without naming Estonia, Putin made a clear reference to the removal of the statue.

"Those who are trying today to belittle this invaluable experience, those who desecrate monuments to the heroes of the war are insulting their own people (and) sowing discord and new distrust between states and people," he said.

Putin congratulated veterans in the shadow of the Kremlin's walls before making his short speech dedicated to the tens of millions of Russians who fell during World War Two.

The Kremlin has sought to foster memories of the Second World War, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, as a way to forge Russian unity after the upheavals and rancour which followed the fall of the Soviet Union.

In Belarus, where one in four citizens died in the war, President Alexander Lukashenko denounced Estonia and criticised Poland over its failure to reopen an exhibition honouring Russian victims of the Auschwitz death camp.

"Acts of mockery of the heroes and victims of war give rise to anger and indignation," Lukashenko told veterans in the centre of Minsk.