There has been plenty of scaremongering over Russia’s activities in the past ten years. From the Russiagate hoax in Washington to slandering any populist-right party – from Berlin to Vienna to Paris to Sofia – as witting or unwitting Muscovite agents, “Russia Russia Russia” has been the establishment’s favourite cry. So one can excuse non-political folks for having tuned out the news about repeated Russian incursions into eastern Europe, particularly into Poland and the Baltics.
But unlike those past lies, these incursions are very real. Estonian airspace was recently violated by three Russian jets for at least 12 minutes, and the jets reportedly ignored signals from NATO pilots. Unlike the recent Russian drone incursion into Poland – which could, technically, have been done via spoofing (though this is unlikely) – these jets clearly did not accidentally find their way into Estonia for that period of time. Just before that, another Russian drone flew into Latvia, and unknown drones were spotted in Denmark and Lithuania.
Denmark likely has little reason to worry, as they are well away from Russia’s border. But the Baltic states are practically lined up for Russia. While these countries have built up their armed forces over the past few years significantly – and have increased civilian military participation – they are still absolutely tiny; Lithuania, the largest, is only about 65,000 square kilometres. Plus some areas, like Estonia’s Narva – a city which borders Russia – are majority Russian-speaking and may have populations which side with Russia in the event of something more than an airspace incursion.
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