Russia compares Estonian law banning non-citizens from carrying firearms to move by Hitler

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed Estonia on Tuesday for passing a discriminatory law against non-citizens in the country that deprives them of the right to carry firearms, likening it to legislation passed in Nazi Germany.

"The Estonian regime has hastily passed yet another discriminatory law against its own non-citizens, the holders of 'grey passports' or 'second-rate people,' as ethnic Russians living in this Baltic republic are referred to in Estonia…I will only say that the last time legislation was introduced expressly forbidding ethnic groups from carrying firearms, it was done by...Adolf Hitler," Zakharova wrote on her Telegram account.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Estonia and Latvia refused to automatically grant citizenship to people from newly formed states who did not know the national language, were not citizens of these countries before 1940, when the countries became Soviet republics, and did not have relatives who were citizens of these republics before 1940.

Approximately two thirds of such people were ethnic Russians. They were issued "gray passports" of "non-citizens" and their rights were significantly curtailed. They were particularly deprived of the right to vote.

Zakharova recalled that under a 1938 law in Germany, Jews were forbidden from taking part in the manufacture of weapons and armaments, while Roma, or Gypsies, were forbidden to own and use firearms.

"Obviously, in an attempt to tighten restrictions for Russian residents of Estonia, the current Estonian government has gone even further than the Nazi-era legislation regulating gun ownership rights for Jews," she said.