The soldiers were seen on Friday evening in the middle of the road in the Boot of Saatse, a piece of boot-shaped Russian territory in southeastern Estonia through which Estonians and other people can drive without a permit. They just can’t stop there.
The stretch on the Estonian side of the border was closed on Friday evening when more activity than normal was observed on the Russian side. Footage shows a group of seven people in military uniforms standing on the road, holding weapons and largely covering their faces.
Meelis Saarepuu, head of the local border guard, confirms the sighting of armed Russians. “Judging from their uniforms, they were definitely not border guards,” he said on Estonian TV on Saturday. “The border guard asked the Russian side for more information. Their answer was that nothing was wrong, that these were merely routine operations.”
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However, Saarepuu speaks of a “threat situation in which we had to decide to temporarily close the road that runs through the Laars van Saatse.”
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The head of border control also said that the threat level was not increased by the incident, but that the situation remains tense. “We constantly see testing and provocations from Russia. Stealing border markings, creating queues at the border or blocking GPS signals.”
Interior Minister Igor Taro does not find it strange that armed men were sighted on the Russian side of the Boot of Saatse. After all, there are border guards there too. He does find it strange that the group was standing in the middle of the road. According to Taro, border guards have never done that before.
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The minister further tells the Postimees newspaper that the group has left the area and that there is no threat of war or anything like that. “This has been continuously confirmed by the Estonian Armed Forces. The incident at the Laars van Saatse has not changed the situation.”
According to Taro, the priority now is to complete diversions, so that no new incidents with an unpleasant outcome can occur in the future.