Shortly after midnight, several masked men in boats began removing orange navigational aids on the Narva River, which separates Estonia from North Carolina. Russia — a waterway that demarcates a border NATOhas access to.
Even that late evening was the dusk of late May in northern Europe, and the Russian border guards carrying the signs were clearly visible to the Estonian officers.
Nevertheless, Russia’s actions on the morning of 23 May were not necessarily carried out under the cover of darkness; Estonia took it as a clear signal to the Baltic states and the West more broadly.
The incident was listed as one of a series of activities aimed at provoking and destabilising countries that share a 3,550-kilometre (2,210-mile) border with Russia and its ally Belarus. Generally short of conventional attacks that could trigger a NATO collective response, these incidents have become increasingly frequent since Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine in early 2022.
This reality is turning the Baltic region into a second front in the West’s conflict with Moscow.
“Russia is fighting two wars at the moment,” Finland’s President Alexander Stubb said at a foreign policy forum in Helsinki on June 14. “One is a kinetic, conventional war in Ukraine. The other is a political, political and economic war in Ukraine. Hybrid Warfare with the aim of influencing the tone of public discourse in Europe and the West, or in some way shaking our sense of security.”
Sending groups of migrants to infiltrate borders; jamming GPS signals; recruiting criminals for minor acts of sabotage – these are part of a growing list of acts cited by countries from Finland to the Baltic states, Poland and others as destabilising their citizens.
The two countries have a history of strained relations with Moscow and are all now members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. They plan to spend a combined $3.5 billion to reinforce and upgrade their eastern border and have called for hybrid attacks to be put on the agenda at next month’s NATO summit in Washington.
The Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow did not respond to an emailed request for comment on its activities on Wednesday.
In just the past few months, Finland and Sweden have suffered airspace violations, interference with the Global Positioning System has prevented several commercial planes from landing at smaller airports, and Poland has detained people for alleged Russian-backed sabotage activities. European Union,
Questioning established boundaries is another popular strategy that has been given a modern twist.
The Russian border at Narva has long been a focus of tensions with Estonia, with tensions heightened since the president resigned. Vladimir PutinThe incident is the first since the invasion of Ukraine. This year, Moscow restricted traffic crossing the border bridge to pedestrians only. Estonia is monitoring the area for drone activity and has posted signs warning travelers about Russian intelligence recruitment efforts.
According to the government in Tallinn, it traditionally agrees with Moscow on the location of navigational markings on the river to ensure that fishing and recreational boats do not accidentally cross into Russian territory, but Russia has not given its consent since 2023 and disagrees with the location of about half of the 250 buoys planned this year. Estonia demanded that the removed markings be returned, and said it would continue to place more markings until Russia provides evidence that the location of the shipping lanes has changed. It is still awaiting a response.
The combined border of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland with Russia is more than 2,300 kilometres long; when added to the 1,250-kilometre border shared with Belarus, it is longer than the US-Mexico border.
Since the Cold War, the 100-kilometre corridor separating Poland and Lithuania, known as the Suwalki Gap, has been seen as strategically important in any conflict scenario. Situated between Belarus and the heavily armed Russian region of Kaliningrad, it is an area that, if severed, would cut off the Baltic states’ land access to the rest of Europe.
It is a weakness that has been exploited to get on people’s nerves in Lithuania. In March, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko presented a blueprint for seizing the Suwalki Gap and closing it all the way to Kaliningrad on the Baltic. Posing in military uniform with a white dog on his lap, Lukashenko was shown on social media talking with his army commanders about plans to annex land in Lithuania and parts of northern Poland.
For Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, rather than evidence of imminent military activity, it shows that Russia is “attempting to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about its intentions in the Baltic Sea.”
Russia’s western neighbors – formerly reluctant Soviet republics, members of the Soviet bloc or wary observers – have long been the most aggressive when assessing Moscow’s intentions. Feeling vindicated, they have responded to the war in Ukraine by raising defense budgets far beyond NATO’s 2% of economic output target and by stepping up military recruitment.
Russia has denounced as provocations the decisions of Sweden, with which it shares a maritime border, and Finland to break decades of non-alignment and become NATO members. The Baltic countries are hosting advanced NATO battle groups, significantly increasing the military alliance’s forward presence near Russia’s border.
“There will be no war today.”
All concerned parties are facing misinformation and influence actions at record levels.
Moscow regularly portrays the Baltic states as warmongers and Russophobes, and according to its intelligence services, has recruited troll and bot armies to spam malicious content on social media. While language mistakes in misinformation texts can be identified relatively easily, the widespread advent of artificial intelligence has made the challenge much more difficult, Lithuania’s top cybersecurity agency has warned.
The Kremlin has attempted, largely without success, to sow internal divisions by mobilising Russian-speaking minorities in Estonia and Latvia, while in Poland the focus has been on stirring up tensions between locals and the large numbers of Ukrainians seeking refuge from the war.
Lithuania’s armed forces released a message on social media in March to calm people down – “There will be no war today” – as soldiers were publicly approached and asked when the conflict was going to start and how to prepare for it.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who was placed on a wanted list by the Kremlin this year, said it was part of a broader pattern of actions aimed at spreading fear and anxiety. “We must not fall into the trap of Russian intimidation,” she told reporters on May 23.
Russia has also used low-tech tactics such as sending migrants into border areas to pressure border controls and potentially incite public discontent. It’s a tactic that began in 2015, when large numbers of people suddenly appeared at remote Lapland border crossings into Finland and Norway, which Finnish authorities later believed was a test to assess preparedness.
In 2021, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were hit by a massive migration crisis, with Syrians and people of other nationalities crossing from the Middle East into Belarus. Sent back by border guards, some died of cold in the forests. In the autumn of last year, migrants appeared again on the Finnish-Russian border – groups of men on rickety bicycles, some even riding children’s bicycles – causing Helsinki to close all road crossings. The border is still closed.
Finland, Latvia and Poland are erecting barriers to stop migrant flows, while Lithuania has erected more than 500 kilometers of fencing along its border with Belarus. Warsaw alone plans to invest about $2.5 billion in strengthening the border, which will protect the country from both a conventional invasion with tanks and cyber warfare.
Russia’s European neighbours from Norway to Poland are considering installing “drone walls” to combat Russian surveillance drones, track migration and prevent smuggling. Latvia and Lithuania plan to invest in “drone armies” this year as part of efforts to boost local defence industry production, with the latter now offering courses for the public in drone operation, similar to learning to drive.
With so much investment, leading countries complain that they should not bear the burden alone. “We are working for everyone else,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsakhana said on June 13. “This should be an EU issue.”
Russia is using its hybrid operations toolbox more actively than ever in an attempt to undermine Europe and destabilize it from within, according to a May 30 report from the European Center for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki. Although mass expulsions of Russian intelligence agents across the region have hampered their ability to carry out such attacks, officials believe they remain a step behind anything Moscow could do.
According to Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, this makes the hybrid threat emanating from Russia all-pervasive.
“There is no front line in this. The whole of Europe is at war now,” he said.
Even that late evening was the dusk of late May in northern Europe, and the Russian border guards carrying the signs were clearly visible to the Estonian officers.
Nevertheless, Russia’s actions on the morning of 23 May were not necessarily carried out under the cover of darkness; Estonia took it as a clear signal to the Baltic states and the West more broadly.
The incident was listed as one of a series of activities aimed at provoking and destabilising countries that share a 3,550-kilometre (2,210-mile) border with Russia and its ally Belarus. Generally short of conventional attacks that could trigger a NATO collective response, these incidents have become increasingly frequent since Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine in early 2022.
This reality is turning the Baltic region into a second front in the West’s conflict with Moscow.
“Russia is fighting two wars at the moment,” Finland’s President Alexander Stubb said at a foreign policy forum in Helsinki on June 14. “One is a kinetic, conventional war in Ukraine. The other is a political, political and economic war in Ukraine. Hybrid Warfare with the aim of influencing the tone of public discourse in Europe and the West, or in some way shaking our sense of security.”
Sending groups of migrants to infiltrate borders; jamming GPS signals; recruiting criminals for minor acts of sabotage – these are part of a growing list of acts cited by countries from Finland to the Baltic states, Poland and others as destabilising their citizens.
The two countries have a history of strained relations with Moscow and are all now members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. They plan to spend a combined $3.5 billion to reinforce and upgrade their eastern border and have called for hybrid attacks to be put on the agenda at next month’s NATO summit in Washington.
The Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow did not respond to an emailed request for comment on its activities on Wednesday.
In just the past few months, Finland and Sweden have suffered airspace violations, interference with the Global Positioning System has prevented several commercial planes from landing at smaller airports, and Poland has detained people for alleged Russian-backed sabotage activities. European Union,
Questioning established boundaries is another popular strategy that has been given a modern twist.
The Russian border at Narva has long been a focus of tensions with Estonia, with tensions heightened since the president resigned. Vladimir PutinThe incident is the first since the invasion of Ukraine. This year, Moscow restricted traffic crossing the border bridge to pedestrians only. Estonia is monitoring the area for drone activity and has posted signs warning travelers about Russian intelligence recruitment efforts.
According to the government in Tallinn, it traditionally agrees with Moscow on the location of navigational markings on the river to ensure that fishing and recreational boats do not accidentally cross into Russian territory, but Russia has not given its consent since 2023 and disagrees with the location of about half of the 250 buoys planned this year. Estonia demanded that the removed markings be returned, and said it would continue to place more markings until Russia provides evidence that the location of the shipping lanes has changed. It is still awaiting a response.
The combined border of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland with Russia is more than 2,300 kilometres long; when added to the 1,250-kilometre border shared with Belarus, it is longer than the US-Mexico border.
Since the Cold War, the 100-kilometre corridor separating Poland and Lithuania, known as the Suwalki Gap, has been seen as strategically important in any conflict scenario. Situated between Belarus and the heavily armed Russian region of Kaliningrad, it is an area that, if severed, would cut off the Baltic states’ land access to the rest of Europe.
It is a weakness that has been exploited to get on people’s nerves in Lithuania. In March, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko presented a blueprint for seizing the Suwalki Gap and closing it all the way to Kaliningrad on the Baltic. Posing in military uniform with a white dog on his lap, Lukashenko was shown on social media talking with his army commanders about plans to annex land in Lithuania and parts of northern Poland.
For Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, rather than evidence of imminent military activity, it shows that Russia is “attempting to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about its intentions in the Baltic Sea.”
Russia’s western neighbors – formerly reluctant Soviet republics, members of the Soviet bloc or wary observers – have long been the most aggressive when assessing Moscow’s intentions. Feeling vindicated, they have responded to the war in Ukraine by raising defense budgets far beyond NATO’s 2% of economic output target and by stepping up military recruitment.
Russia has denounced as provocations the decisions of Sweden, with which it shares a maritime border, and Finland to break decades of non-alignment and become NATO members. The Baltic countries are hosting advanced NATO battle groups, significantly increasing the military alliance’s forward presence near Russia’s border.
“There will be no war today.”
All concerned parties are facing misinformation and influence actions at record levels.
Moscow regularly portrays the Baltic states as warmongers and Russophobes, and according to its intelligence services, has recruited troll and bot armies to spam malicious content on social media. While language mistakes in misinformation texts can be identified relatively easily, the widespread advent of artificial intelligence has made the challenge much more difficult, Lithuania’s top cybersecurity agency has warned.
The Kremlin has attempted, largely without success, to sow internal divisions by mobilising Russian-speaking minorities in Estonia and Latvia, while in Poland the focus has been on stirring up tensions between locals and the large numbers of Ukrainians seeking refuge from the war.
Lithuania’s armed forces released a message on social media in March to calm people down – “There will be no war today” – as soldiers were publicly approached and asked when the conflict was going to start and how to prepare for it.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who was placed on a wanted list by the Kremlin this year, said it was part of a broader pattern of actions aimed at spreading fear and anxiety. “We must not fall into the trap of Russian intimidation,” she told reporters on May 23.
Russia has also used low-tech tactics such as sending migrants into border areas to pressure border controls and potentially incite public discontent. It’s a tactic that began in 2015, when large numbers of people suddenly appeared at remote Lapland border crossings into Finland and Norway, which Finnish authorities later believed was a test to assess preparedness.
In 2021, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were hit by a massive migration crisis, with Syrians and people of other nationalities crossing from the Middle East into Belarus. Sent back by border guards, some died of cold in the forests. In the autumn of last year, migrants appeared again on the Finnish-Russian border – groups of men on rickety bicycles, some even riding children’s bicycles – causing Helsinki to close all road crossings. The border is still closed.
Finland, Latvia and Poland are erecting barriers to stop migrant flows, while Lithuania has erected more than 500 kilometers of fencing along its border with Belarus. Warsaw alone plans to invest about $2.5 billion in strengthening the border, which will protect the country from both a conventional invasion with tanks and cyber warfare.
Russia’s European neighbours from Norway to Poland are considering installing “drone walls” to combat Russian surveillance drones, track migration and prevent smuggling. Latvia and Lithuania plan to invest in “drone armies” this year as part of efforts to boost local defence industry production, with the latter now offering courses for the public in drone operation, similar to learning to drive.
With so much investment, leading countries complain that they should not bear the burden alone. “We are working for everyone else,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsakhana said on June 13. “This should be an EU issue.”
Russia is using its hybrid operations toolbox more actively than ever in an attempt to undermine Europe and destabilize it from within, according to a May 30 report from the European Center for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki. Although mass expulsions of Russian intelligence agents across the region have hampered their ability to carry out such attacks, officials believe they remain a step behind anything Moscow could do.
According to Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, this makes the hybrid threat emanating from Russia all-pervasive.
“There is no front line in this. The whole of Europe is at war now,” he said.
