Near Russia’s border with the Baltics, soldiers on both sides are practicing for war
By Michael Birnbaum
WashingtonPost.com
July 3, 2016
VORU, Estonia — When unidentified aircraft were speeding toward northern Estonia one recent day, British fighter jets stationed nearby scrambled to intercept them. Screaming across the country, they quickly identified the targets: two Russian fighters and a spy plane. It was just the latest confrontation between the West and Russia in a region that has fast become a tripwire for conflict between nuclear superpowers.
In the two years since Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the tiny Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have taken an oversize role in facing down Russia’s challenge to the West. The Kremlin has been building up its military along its border with the former Soviet satellites. Western allies of the Baltics, worried that the region is vulnerable, have responded by pouring tanks, warplanes and soldiers into an area slightly larger than Florida. They will commit thousands more troops to the three countries and Poland at a summit starting Friday.
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