Laura Juristo stopped by the Russian embassy every day last week on her way to work in Tallinn’s cobblestoned Old Town. She brought tape to repair weather damage to the posters denouncing the war in Ukraine and to ensure that the memo to Moscow would stay up for another day.

“We are in NATO. We’re in the EU. This is not our place to feel traumatized, even though everyone can feel traumatized by what’s happening,” Ms. Juristo, 26, said. “It’s our place to just stand strong and calm and give all the support that we can” to the people of Ukraine.

As she was speaking, an elderly man interrupted and began upbraiding her in Russian – about a quarter of Estonia’s 1.3 million people identify as ethnic Russians. After he left, she translated his rant, a flurry of the misinformation regularly pumped out by Russian state-controlled media.

The interaction left Ms. Juristo uncomfortable, but she said the man represented a small minority – on the “other end of the spectrum of reality.”

Ms. Juristo is from the generation of Estonians born after Soviet rule ended in 1991. But her small country’s proximity to Russia – and what she sees as President Vladimir Putin’s irrational behaviour – have left her rattled and wondering how safe she should actually feel.

“What’s happening in Ukraine is also not based on logic,” she said. “Putin’s doing this not based on logic. … Logic is, you know, fading away.”

Estonia has been part of the European Union and NATO since 2004. Its economy is among the most developed of former Soviet republics, and it’s a world leader in digital government services and communications. But its history under Russian occupation leaves it particularly wary of Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine. “Who’s next?” read the sign outside a fraternity in Tallinn, where students were gathering donations for refugees.

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