Laas Leivat
According to an article in Rossiskaja Gazeta, Estonian brigadier general Meelis Kiili, commander of the Defence League, has urged all ``self-respecting farmers to have at his home a grenade launcher or at least a machine gun``.
The Annual Report by Estonia’s defence forces, in analysing Russia’s efforts in influence activity abroad sees undisguised aggression in Moscow’s wide-reaching and intense use of the media. Estonia is the object of accusations, slander, pure fabrication. And stories that have no relation to reality. It’s problems are exaggerated and the authors of the campaign are not in the least bit embarrassed in creating tales of outrageous nonsense.
It’s not only western civilian agencies that observe the activities of Russia’s propaganda/influence apparatus, but the nature of the ‘hybrid’ warfare concept requires a nation’s military also to be fully informed of foreign multi-dimensional strategies. The Russian propaganda system has been heavily financed and is meant to convey its message not only to the world, to Estonian residents and also to its own population in Russia. The Defence Forces’ report says that the Russian influence activities should not be over-dramatized, but one should have a clear understanding of it.
The Russian influence machine has been extra sensitive to NATO activities, its presence in close proximity to the Russian border, the placement of US military units and weapon systems there and military exercises. Of equal interest has been the arrival of Western fighter jets to the Amari air base in Estonia. The possibility of a military conflict arising as a result of Western “aggressiveness” and the chance of this expanding into a nuclear confrontation has been regularly used. And if a NATO-Russia conflict were ever to materialize, the Baltic states would be the theatre of operations, according to Moscow’s propaganda. (Pikemalt Eesti Elu 5. augusti paberlehes)
