2008, Bäckman disagrees with the integration policies of Estonia. In his opinion, Estonian integration policies that have seen some 147,000 Russian speakers receiving Estonian citizenship in the past decade are "apartheid" and represent a "criminal discrimination of Russians". In the Bronze Soldier he dismissed the Soviet occupation of Estonia as a "Nazi myth". Bäckman has gained publicity in Estonia for denying the Soviet occupation during 1940-1941 and 1944-1991: "In my opinion speaking or writing of Soviet 'occupation' should be criminalised as a form of racist propaganda." In connection to the publication of the book in September 2008, Bäckman gave several interviews, including one in which he claimed Estonia will join Russia within a decade. Bäckman also claimed that the "destruction" of the Bronze Soldier grave site and monument in April 2007 by the Estonian government was "the end of history of Estonia". He speculated that most of the Russian youth all over Russia, including children, hate Estonia and deny her the right to exist. Bäckman went on to predict that in ten years at most, the Nashi would come to power in Russia, leading to an end of the Estonian statehood shortly afterwards. After the publication of the book, Finnish and Estonian cultural figures, scholars, journalists and politicians, including Henrik Lax, Lasse Lehtinen and Sofi Oksanen, addressed the University of Helsinki in an open letter of protest, partly in relation to Bäckman teaching a course on "specialities of Estonian legal policy" in the Spring 2009 semester. Bäckman immediately threatened to sue the letter's authors for libel and later filed a criminal complaint, but the Helsinki Police refused to open investigation. The former minister of foreign affairs of Finland Dr. Erkki Tuomioja called Bäckman's book as "deliberate provocation", but condemned the open letter for violating the principles of freedom of speech. The University of Helsinki distanced itself in a statement holding that Bäckman's political views are his own and do not represent the University's. Estonian Internal Security Service and Bäckman The Estonian Internal Security Service (Kaitsepolitseiamet) official Andres Kahar said in the Estonian press that Bäckman is "a Russian propagandist" spreading disinformation similar to claims made in Moscow. In March 2009, the newspaper Eesti Ekspress reported a link between Bäckman and the Finnish neo-nazi Risto Teinonen, alleging both of them are connected to the reputed former KGB agent Vladimir Ilyashevich residing in Estonia, all of whom are linked to the Russian