Estonia’s city at the ‘end of the free world’ stares across a frozen border at Russia

NARVA, Estonia — This snow-covered border bridge between two medieval fortresses in a Russian-speaking corner of Estonia might be where World War III starts.

The city of Narva, squeezed along Estonia’s border with Russia, has been at the center of efforts to resist what it claims are near constant provocations from Moscow — from satellite navigation jamming, to snatched border demarcation buoys, blaring propaganda, surveillance drones and buzzing blimps marked with the ‘Z’ of Russia’s armed forces.

“We are not intending to start a third world war, but we see the constant attempts to provoke us to do something which would have a higher impact,” said Egert Belitšev, the director general of Estonia’s Police and Border Guard Board, on a snowy December afternoon in Narva.

About a quarter of Estonia’s population of 1.4 million is ethnic Russian. Most hold Estonian citizenship and a majority feel close ties to Estonia, but the Kremlin is a past master of exploiting ethnic differences to claim a special role in protecting the Russian diaspora. It’s done that in Georgia and Moldova and that was the pretext for its invasion of Ukraine.

The worry is that the Kremlin could play the same card and try to seize eastern Estonia, with its large population of ethnic Russians, and then dare NATO to launch a global war in response. A failure to react would show that NATO’s Article 5 common defense provision is meaningless.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin even suggested in 2022, not long after Moscow launched its all-out war on Ukraine, that Narva is historically part of Russia.

Narva, the third-largest city in Estonia, is closer to St. Petersburg than it is to Tallinn. Of its roughly 56,000 inhabitants, 96 percent speak Russian and a third hold a Russian passport

Describing the city as “the end of the free world,” Belitšev, an ethnic-Estonian security official, doesn’t think Estonia’s NATO allies are prepared for what might happen here.

There are some 900 British soldiers deployed in the country as part of a multinational NATO force at the Tapa air base west of Tallinn; France also has troops there. The British government has pledged to have its 4th Brigade Combat Team on stand-by for rapid deployment. NATO has created battlegroups in most eastern member countries, and plans to expand those groups in Latvia and Lithuania. It hasn’t made that commitment in Estonia due to a shortfall in the British Army, which has only two armored brigades available.

If Russia were to strike, it’s unlikely the NATO force in Tapa, supplemented by Estonia’s 7,700 active personnel (boosted to 43,000  in the event of war), would have enough firepower to repel an offensive.

What’s more, a recent visit by a Belgian delegation focused on how to evacuate its nationals, neglecting to seriously discuss how troops can be quickly sent to defend the Baltics, Belitšev said.

“I think the awareness is not there as much we have it,” he said of his country’s allies. “It wasn’t there in 2008 [when Russia invaded Georgia], it wasn’t there in 2014 [when Crimea was annexed] and it’s not there now … people don’t understand the actual situation.”

Eyes on Russia

For Tallinn the question of what to do about its big neighbor to the east is existential.

The smallest Baltic state is already spending 3.4 percent of its GDP on defense and plans to ratchet that up to 3.7 percent next year, far ahead of bigger EU countries.

The fear in Tallinn is what happens after the war in Ukraine is settled, and if Russia uses any pause in the fighting to attack a vulnerable NATO country.

That threat makes policing the border all the more important.

“When the invasion occurs it’s already too late,” Estonia’s Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said in Tallinn. “We need to look into the early warning system, and be clear in advance that if the first person comes over the border then we will respond immediately.”

Estonia has long and bitter experience of being a Russian colony. It only regained its independence in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed, and has since rushed to tighten links to the EU and NATO.

The danger posed by Moscow was highlighted in 2014, when security services officer Eston Kohver was kidnapped and imprisoned by Russia; he was released a year later in a prisoner swap.

“Can we be certain that something like that doesn’t happen again?” said Belitšev, standing on the Narva River bridge, looking past Estonia’s recently-installed anti-tank dragon’s teeth defenses.

Belitšev said the plan is to cover every meter of Estonia’s 338-kilometer border with Russia with surveillance technology.

That’s easier said than done.

First, there’s a 77-kilometer stretch running along the Narva River. Russia’s removal of border buoys this summer caused incursions into Estonian territory to spike from 18 the preceding two years to 96 this year.

Without the floating markers, Estonia’s guards have trouble distinguishing between accidental trespassers and brazen attempts to break into the EU. “If the buoys are not there in the river it causes lots of mistakes,” said Belitšev.

Russia’s blocking of GPS signals in the area also makes it tough to track aircraft or drones and detect smugglers, while also making it impossible for guards to accurately pinpoint locations out in the wilderness.

South of Narva, the border runs 126 kilometers through Lake Peipus after which it snakes south a further 136 kilometers through two road crossings at Koidula and Luhhamaa, near where Kohver was snatched, cutting through swampland. While the soggy terrain provides a natural barrier in summer, it hardens in freezing temperatures.

“It’s like an airfield in the winter time,” Belitšev said. “You can land an airplane there if you want.”

Strengthening defenses

A €157 million program is aimed at bolstering border protection at Narva.

Belitšev said Estonia is building what he calls a “drone wall” that uses digital systems to block enemy drones.

The plan is also to recruit a police reserve of 1,000 security personnel nationwide as a back-up in case of a major event, in addition to the 29,000 volunteers already training as part of the Estonian Defense League.

Bolstering numbers isn’t easy in a place like Narva since applicants have to be fluent in Estonian and be a citizen to serve in the police.

“In this region we are always struggling to recruit new officers,” he said.

Inside Narva’s imposing riverside fortress, which at various points over the last 700 years has been held by Danes, Germans, Poles, Swedes, Russians, Soviets and now Estonians, the city museum’s CEO Maria Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova said it’s tough to fight Moscow’s information war.

This year, Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova came under online attack for running an exhibition titled Narva 44 dealing with the destruction of the border city during World War II by Soviet forces.

The Kremlin blames the devastation on retreating German troops, she said, but the photos showed a different story.

The exhibition annoyed Narva’s local council. Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova’s team also attracted criticism for placing a giant banner on the side of the fortress facing Russia proclaiming “Putin is a War Criminal” during Russia’s Victory Day celebrations in May.

Estonia is trying to keep relations with its ethnic Russians and with Moscow from boiling over. While Finland has closed all of its land border crossings with Russia, Estonia keeps a bridge in Narva open to foot traffic, which means there’s a constant focus on policing the flow of people.

Festering discontent is clear from those trying to cross.

At the entrance to the border checkpoint there’s a long queue snaking out into the town square as hundreds wait in the snow for passage into Russia. Travelers traversing the long, icy walkway over the bridge into Russia, many dragging big rolling suitcases, groan in Russian that the Estonian authorities have forced them to wait for hours due to cumbersome exit checks.

Belitšev blamed the Russians for creating traffic problems to make his team look bad and incite ill-feeling, but added it’s not his job to make transit to an “aggressor” state easy.

“If you want to enter Russia, it shouldn’t be comfortable,” he said.