On October 12, NATO’s top military commander issued a stark warning to Russia. General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said that if Moscow were “foolish enough” to attack an alliance territory, NATO would destroy “anything and everything” involved in the attack.

His remarks came at a time of rising tensions between Russia and European nations. And one country that finds itself under pressure on the hot Russia-NATO border is the tiny Estonia.

When the U.S., Canada, and 10 other European nations came together in 1949, in the early phase of the Cold War, to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), they had a clear goal. As Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, the alliance’s first Secretary General, famously put it, the purpose was to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

Throughout the Cold War, NATO had been the primary military bulwark against Soviet power in Europe. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia fell into a phase of strategic retreat, while NATO expanded towards Eastern Europe. This set the stage for renewed tensions once Russia started reasserting itself in the region.

The situation became even more complicated after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine was offered NATO membership in 2018, but it never became a member. So it’s not covered by NATO’s Article 5 collective defence, but in its war with Russia, Kyiv is getting military support from NATO members.

The war has also prompted European states lately to raise concerns over Russia’s grey-zone activities. These include cyberattacks, sabotage, disinformation, and electronic interference.

A sensitive border city

Grey-zone activities are designed to put pressure on a country without necessarily triggering an open military conflict. Moscow has denied these allegations.

These concerns have become particularly important in the Baltic region, where fears are growing that Russia could attempt to spread instability beyond Ukraine without launching a full-scale invasion of another European country. This leaves Estoinia in a vulnerable position. Located in northeastern Europe, Estonia, formerly part of the Soviet Union, shares border with Russia and sits along NATO’s eastern flank. The country became independent after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

It joined NATO in 2004, upsetting Moscow.

A small country bordering the Baltic Sea to its west and Russia to its east, Estonia sits in an unenviable location. Its proximity to Russian territory means that any military movements, border incidents, and developments in the surrounding region can have immediate consequences for its national security. Estonia is not alone in facing these challenges. Latvia and Lithuania also sit on NATO’s eastern flank, while Finland, a recent NATO member, shares a long land border with Russia.

For a country of around 1.3 million people, covering approximately 45,000 sq. km, Estonia risks getting caught between Russia and NATO is the crisis escales into conflict.

According to a report in the Financial Times, Russian state media has always portrayed Estonia as a hostile, “Russophobic” country seeking confrontation with Moscow. Russian officials have issued warnings about NATO’s military presence in the Baltic region.

One location attracting particular attention is Narva, an Estonian city on the Russian border, separated from the Russian city of Ivangorod by the Narva River. Its geographical position makes it important to Estonia’s border security. The city also has a predominantly Russian-speaking population.

Estonian officials fear that Moscow could attempt to exploit local tensions or use disinformation to create pressure on the country. The question for Estonia now is how to prepare for the possibility of the worst.

‘Active’ defence strategy

The Estonian government introduced the concept of “active defence” into its national security planning in 2026.

Since then, the country’s small military has begun a major reorganisation, shifting away from a strategy that could allow Russian forces to advance into Estonian territory before a counter-attack.

From Tapa, one of Estonia’s main military bases, troops are being redeployed further east, closer to the Russian border.

A new military facility is being developed in Jõhvi, while another base is being built in Narva itself.

According to the Financial Times, the planned Narva facility is designed to house around 200 soldiers, with space for up to 1,000 during a crisis.

Estonia has also begun shifting towards a strategy designed to prevent an adversary from gaining territory in the first place.

Rather than relying on a later counter-attack, its forces would attempt to engage Russian troops from the beginning of an invasion while using longer-range weapons to strike military targets behind the front line.

Col. Tarmo Kundla, commander of the Estonian First Brigade, has explained the thinking behind this approach. In simple terms, he said, Estonia wants to stop an invading force from gaining ground rather than allowing it to advance and then attempting to take back the territory later (a lesson learnt from the war in Ukraine).

Adding to this is Estonia’s military spending and weapons purchases. Estonia’s defence spending is set to rise by 42% in 2026, reaching €2.4 billion, or around 5.4% of its GDP.

The country has also signed contracts to acquire nine U.S.-made HIMARS rocket launcher systems and nine South Korean Chunmoo systems. This includes M57 ballistic missiles with a reported range of up to 300 km. This is significant because St. Petersburg, one of Russia’s largest cities, lies approximately 260 km from Estonia.

Depending on the weapon used and the target involved, these systems could put military targets deep inside Russian territory within striking distance. Coming to Estonia’s manpower, the country has a trained reserve force of up to 2,30,000 people, while its permanent standing forces comprise around 4,200 personnel.

Estonia cannot defend itself entirely alone. The country does not have its own conventional combat air force and relies on NATO allies for air policing and the wider protection of its skies. Hence, it cannot be separated from the role of NATO in its military preparations.

The U.K. has maintained a military presence in Estonia as part of NATO’s forward defence. The Financial Times reports that Britain has committed to increasing its deployment from around 800 to 1,200 troops by April 2027. These deployments are intended to strengthen deterrence by making clear that an attack on Estonia could involve forces from other NATO members from the beginning of the conflict.

Estonian officials have expressed concerns about the possibility of a future conflict, but they are also preparing for the risk of a smaller attack designed to test the alliance’s response.

“I’m not sure if we can deter the mad person. What we have to do is to prepare,” said Gen. Martin Herem, former Commander of Estonian Defence Forces and current Defence Minister, earlier this month. “And that’s the only thing. We have to prepare very seriously [for an attack], and in doing so, we may prevent it.”

(Smriti Sudesh is a postgraduate student at SOAS University of London)

Russia bombarded cities across Ukraine with missiles and drones in an overnight onslaught that ran into the daylight hours of Thursday (August 27, 2026), when explosions echoed around Kyiv through the morning.

Ukraine is desperately short of U.S.-made Patriot air defense missiles that can counter Russia’s ballistic missiles, and Moscow’s fast-flying jet-powered drones have brought another challenge since the Russian military’s full-scale invasion began four and a half years ago.

Ukrainian officials say Russia builds up missile stocks and launches major attacks every few days, hoping to exhaust Ukrainian defences through the sheer weight of numbers. In response, Ukraine has hit high-profile targets on Russian soil as the countries inflict mutual destruction.

The Russian Defence Ministry said its forces carried out a “massive” strike on targets in nine Ukrainian cities that began after nightfall on Wednesday (August 26, 2026). It described the targets as military-related, including industrial facilities, oil refineries, logistics hubs and port infrastructure.

Civilian areas, including apartment buildings, suffered damage. The barrage killed a 78-year-old woman in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and another person in the northern Kharkiv region, with at least 14 people reported wounded elsewhere, Ukrainian officials said.

“Russia continues to invest in missiles and in expanding its war, and that means more countermeasures are needed,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media, noting promises earlier this week by European countries to provide more air defence assistance.

“It is important that these (measures) are also supplemented by additional ballistic missile defense packages” through European purchases of weapons from the United States, he said.

Though the Russian Defence Ministry insisted only war-related targets were attacked, Russia appears determined to hurt Ukrainian businesses and dent the country’s economy through attacks on private enterprise after Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes caused financial difficulties for Moscow.

Russian drones hit three major distribution centers, destroying depots belonging to a toy store chain and a confectionery company, and damaging another run by an electronics retailer, the companies said.

In addition, Moscow continued its efforts to wreck the Ukrainian power grid before the freezing winter months.

Four powerful glide bombs destroyed generating equipment at the southern Kherson region’s combined heat and power plant, forcing it to shut down, its operator Naftogaz said.

Mr. Zelenskyy was due to visit neighbouring Moldova on Thursday (August 27, 2026) to mark its national day commemorating its 1991 declaration of independence from the Soviet Union. Ukraine announced its independence the same year.

Russia’s neighbours in Eastern Europe are concerned its invasion of Ukraine could trigger a wider conflict, and drones flying into its airspace have fueled jitters.

Moldova’s Ministry of Defence said on Thursday (August 27, 2026) that five drones breached its airspace overnight, but it didn’t specify who fired them.

Ukraine’s air force said defences shot down or suppressed seven Russian ballistic missiles, though it didn’t say how they achieved that.

Four districts of Kyiv were hit during the night, damaging residential buildings, a school and a medical facility, though no casualties were reported, city police said.

Russian forces struck industrial facilities as well as energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s central Poltava region, said Vitalii Diakivnych, head of the Poltava regional military administration.

The southern Odesa region also came under a major Russian attack lasting more than seven hours, according to Oleh Kiper, head of the Odesa regional military administration.

The barrage damaged a 16-story residential building and two educational facilities as well as a grain elevator, he said. Odesa is a key port for Ukraine’s vital exports of grain and other agricultural products.

Some trains were delayed by more than 17 hours following the attack, according to Ukrainian state rail company Ukrzaliznysia.

Ukraine has also fired hundreds of long-range drones almost nightly at targets in Russia.

Ukraine’s General Staff said that plane-launched missiles hit Russia’s main and backup command posts near the eastern city of Donetsk, where Ukrainian defenders are under pressure from a Russian push.

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Thursday (August 27, 2026) that its air defences shot down 267 Ukrainian drones over 14 Russian regions, the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula, the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

After razing huge warehouses in recent months belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, Ukrainian drones are now taking aim at Ozon, the country’s second-largest e-commerce company.

Ozon initially said that its logistics facilities in the cities of Orenburg and Ufa were attacked, but neither of the premises caught fire. A later alteration to the company statement said that only the Ufa site was attacked, while the Orenburg facility was evacuated because of an alert, but resumed normal operations.

Published – August 27, 2026 09:43 pm IST