Russia threatened to punish Estonia yesterday for the “blasphemous and inhuman” removal of a monument to the Red Army after deadly rioting took over Tallinn, the capital.

The Estonian Government moved the bronze statue of a Soviet soldier in the dead of night after the Baltic state’s worst violence since independence more than 15 years ago. One man died and 57 were hurt, including 12 police, during six hours of clashes on Thursday night that left the streets littered with glass.

Last night police fired rubber bullets and tear gas as the rioters returned to the centre of Tallinn. About 300 people were detained and ten were injured.

Russia reacted furiously to the removal of the monument and accused Estonia of dishonouring the memory of soldiers who died fighting Nazi Germany. Sergei Lavrov, the Foreign Minister, called the monument sacred.

The Federation Council, the Russian senate, called on the Kremlin to break off diplomatic relations and impose economic sanctions. Its resolution, passed unanimously, described Estonian officials as “provincial neo-Nazis”. It criticised the European Union and Nato for remaining silent about the actions of a member state.

Sergei Mironov, Speaker of the Council, said: “Enough of mockery of the dead and the victory in the Second World War.” Nashi, a pro-Kremlin youth group, also threatened to call hundreds of supporters to blockade the Estonian Embassy in Moscow until the monument was restored in Tallinn.

The crisis threatens to stoke tensions between Russia and the European Union, which would be obliged to react if Moscow imposed sanctions on Estonia, an EU member since 2004. Relations are already strained after President Putin threatened on Thursday to pull out of a key arms-control agreement for Europe, accusing Nato members of failing to meet their obligations.

Mr Lavrov broadened the monument dispute at a meeting with Nato in Oslo yesterday, saying that the behaviour of Estonia posed a challenge to European values and that Russia would take “serious steps” against it. “Estonia and the Estonian Government has not respected these values. The Estonian Government spat on those things,” he said.

Rioting broke out in Tallinn late on Thursday when about 1,000 mainly pro-Russian demonstrators gathered at the central square, where officials had cordoned off the monument. Police used water cannon, rubber batons and flash grenades to disperse the crowd.

Estonian officials claimed that many of those on the streets were drunken teenagers intent on looting. More than 300 people — ethnic Russians and Estonians — were arrested and dozens of shops were vandalised. “The criminals who struck last night were not united by nationality but by the wish to riot, demolish and rob,” President Ilves told national television. “This had nothing to do with the peace of a burial place or preserving the memory of those who fell in the Second World War.”

The fate of the Bronze Soldier has divided the country, where about 300,000 of its 1.3 million people are Russian-speakers, and plunged relations with Moscow into their worst crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Estonians regard the two-metre (6½ foot) statue as a humiliating reminder of 50 years of Soviet occupation. Moscow and many Estonian Russian-speakers regard it as a monument in honour of the Red Army troops who liberated the country from Nazi occupation in 1944 on the road to Berlin.

The Estonian Government said yesterday that it had suspended indefinitely excavation at the site to locate the remains of Red Army soldiers.

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