NATO Member Estonia has accused the Russian Federation of briefly infiltrating a small group of security agents under its border force into its territory, the latest in a series of incidents that have riled the Western alliance.
The Estonian government cited security camera footage showing a group of three Russian border guards, an agency under the Russian Federation’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the inheritor agency of the KGB and others, illegally crossing into its territory on Wednesday. According to their telling of events, three Russians crossed the Narva River on the Estonia-Russia border while riding on a hovercraft and disembarked onto a spit of land in the river on the Estonian side of the line of control.
The three agents of the Russian Federation’s border guard are said to have walked around before embarking back on their hovercraft and going home. Estonia has upped police and border patrols since the incident and say they have called diplomatic discussions with Moscow to make their protests known.
Estonian Interior Minister Igor Taro said: “There was no immediate security threat, but the police and border guards have significantly increased their presence and patrols”.
The event is the latest in a series of relatively minor incursions into NATO territory by Russia that individually can be dismissed as accidents, but which together the alliance is treating as provocative vulnerability-probing. Estonia built a new border fence along the Russian frontier after the 2014 Ukraine War and now frequently closes what few border crossings remain in response to the appearances of groups of Russian soldiers on the other side.
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