Estonian officials excavate grave thought to hold Soviet soldiers killed by Nazis

TALLINN, Estonia -- Estonian officials said Saturday that they had begun exhuming a grave thought to hold the remains of Soviet soldiers killed by the Nazis, a day after the removal of a memorial on the site provoked widespread rioting by ethnic Russians.

About 15 people are buried at the small park adjacent to where the Bronze Soldier monument stood. The exact number of bodies and their identity is not known.

Lutheran and Russian Orthodox ceremonies were conducted before the excavations started. The site was covered by a white tent and surrounded by police officers, who kept the press and public far from the area.

Some 50,000 Soviet soldiers are estimated to have died on Estonian territory while fighting Nazi German troops in World War II. Estonia's Russians -- less than one-third of the country's 1.3 million population -- regarded the monument as a shrine to Red Army soldiers who died fighting the Nazis, but ethnic Estonians consider it a painful reminder of hardships during a half-century of Soviet rule.

The Defense Ministry said it aimed to complete the excavation work "as quickly as possible" but did not give a timeline.

The rioting was the worst seen since the Baltic state won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and has raised concern throughout the European Union, which Estonia joined in 2004.

'Crisis situation'

President Vladimir Putin expressed the "most serious concern" about the "crisis situation" to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country holds the rotating chairmanship of the European Union, the Kremlin said.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov this week called the decision to remove the statue and graves "absolutely repulsive."

Sixty-six people were injured in Tallinn, including six policemen, as angry ethnic Russian youths angry rioted for a second night Friday. More than 500 people -- many of them adolescents -- were detained overnight as vandals prowled the streets, breaking shop windows and looting stores, police spokeswoman Julia Garanza said Saturday.

Unrest also spread to the towns of Kohtla-Jarve and Johvi, two towns dominated by Russian-speakers about 110 miles east of Tallinn. More than 40 people were detained there, local officials said. In Johvi, a few hundred rioters smashed store windows and broke traffic signs, authorities said.

The statue, of a Red Army soldier with his rifle slung over his back, was being held at an undisclosed location, said Andreas Kaju, a Defense Ministry adviser.

In the first night of rioting, beginning Thursday, one person died and 56 were injured, including 12 police. Nearly 1,000 rioters in all have been detained.

On Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry demanded that Estonian authorities conduct a full probe into the death of the person killed on Thursday.

It said the victim -- a young man who has been identified so far only by his first name Dmitri -- was a Russian permanently living in Estonia. He was stabbed to death on a central Tallinn street during the clashes, apparently by another rioter.

In Moscow, various activist and pro-Kremlin youth groups protested on Saturday in front of the Estonian Embassy, some wearing World War II military uniforms. Protesters threw tomatoes at the embassy and insulted the Estonian ambassador, news reports said.

Estonian embassy officials suspended operations at the Moscow consulate, saying "an adequate level of security for the embassy was not being guaranteed," according to Russian news agencies.

Several Russian grocery retailers have announced they would stop selling Estonian goods in protest.