Russia is indignant about “blasphemous” moves by Estonia to criminalize displays of Soviet symbols in public, the AFP news agency reported quoting the Russian Foreign Ministry release.

The provisional approval of legislation “which equates Soviet symbols with Nazi ones, arouses indignation,” the ministry said in a statement.

The Estonian government on Thursday approved a draft law that would make it a crime to display Soviet or Nazi-era symbols in public.

The bill, which requires approval from lawmakers, bans the display of the flags of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and other official symbols of the two “occupying regimes” of Estonia if it is likely to fuel hatred between different ethnic or social groups.

The Estonian authorities are “continuing their blasphemous attempts to rewrite history, putting the crimes of the Nazis on the same level as the achievement of the Soviet people, who made the decisive contribution in freeing Europe from fascism,” the statement said.

It is customary for Soviet war veterans and their supporters among the country’s large Russian population to wave the red Soviet flag when they mark Soviet-era anniversaries.

If the law is passed, displays of Soviet symbols would be punishable by up to three years in prison.

Estonia regained independence from the collapsing Soviet Union in 1991, and there have been regular angry exchanges between Tallinn and Moscow since then over the two countries’ deep differences about the legacy of World War II.

Estonia was under Russian rule until 1918, and its first period of independence was snuffed out when Soviet troops invaded in 1940.

The Baltic country was then occupied by Nazi Germany from 1941 until 1944, when the Red Army expelled Hitler’s forces and incorporated Estonia into the Soviet Union.

Moscow refuses to recognize its five-decade rule as an occupation.

Around one-third of Estonia’s population of 1.3 million are Russians, most of whose families were moved to the country during the Soviet era.

Estonia’s neighbor Latvia, which suffered a similar fate, has a law banning the use of both Soviet and Nazi symbols at public meetings.

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