Kamran Abilov, who became Russia’s new Chargé d’affaires in Estonia in December, said that at present it is impossible to resume negotiations between the two countries on the ratification of agreements related to their common state border.

“The Russian Federation’s approach to the State Border Treaty and the Treaty on the Delimitation of Maritime Areas in the Gulf of Narva (also known as Narva Bay – ed.) and Gulf of Finland remains unchanged. The need to ratify the signed agreements was being discussed until February 2022,” Kamran Abilov said in an interview with Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

The treaties between Russia and Estonia regarding the Russian-Estonian state border and the delimitation of maritime areas in the Gulf of Narva and Gulf of Finland were signed in 2014 but have not yet been ratified.

According to Abilov, in May 2022, the Estonian parliament (Riigikogu) rejected a bill to withdraw signatures from the agreements “due to the lack of legal grounds.”

“At the same time, it was stated that in the context of ‘Russian aggression,’ the Estonian side does not intend to return to the issue of ratification. Given the hostile official position of Tallinn, we consider it impossible to resume the negotiation process at this stage,” Abilov said.

The most recent Russian ambassador to Estonia was Vladimir Lipaev. He was appointed in December 2021 and took up his post in February 2022, just before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In January 2023, the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ordered Russia to cut the size of its embassy staff in Tallinn to achieve parity with the number of people working at the Estonian Embassy in Moscow, forcing the Russian Embassy to more than halve its staff at the time. A total of 13 Russian diplomats and eight technical staff were made to leave the country.

In response, Russia decided to downgrade the level of mutual diplomatic representation to that of charge d’affaires ad interim. Russia thus summoned the Estonian ambassador in Moscow and requesting they leave by February 7 and also recalled Lipaev from Tallinn, relieving him of his ambassadorial duties.

From March 2023 to December 2025, Russia was represented in Estonia by Chargé d’affaires Lenar Salimullin.

According to publicly available sources, in 2006, Kamran Abilov defended his doctoral dissertation, “The Problem of the Legal Status of Palestinians in the Process of Establishing a Palestinian State,” at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia.

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