The drive from the Russian border to the Tapa military base in Estonia is only three hours by tank. And that concerns the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO. The military base once belonged to the Soviet Union. Now, it has 1,000 NATO soldiers as well as millions of dollars’ worth of military equipment.

The soldiers are officially part of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence program, which began in 2016. It was set up to stop any Russian intervention in the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania. The three countries joined the Atlantic alliance in 2004.

The NATO troops are considered a tripwire force. That means any military action by Russia into the Baltic States would lead to a NATO reaction. The alliance has promised to defend its members.

Two times in the past week Russian aircraft violated Estonian airspace in the Gulf of Finland, said an official for the Estonian defense forces. Each time, he said, a Russian airplane entered the airspace for less than one minute and failed to answer radio calls from Estonia’s Air Navigation Services. The Estonian Foreign Ministry requested talks with the Russian Ambassador and gave him a diplomatic note each time, The Baltic Times reported.

Aliqismet BADALOV,
“Khalq qazeti”