Estonia

Estonians live with a single great fear: that of a possible Russian invasion. The fall of the Soviet Union did not dissolve the doubts of Estonians. The governments of Baltic countries have always thought of everything they would have to do in order to eliminate dependency on Moscow, in terms of energy and infrastructure, and to align themselves more towards the west. There is the constant nightmare, that the Kremlin has always denied having put into action. Yet still Tallin in constantly preparing for this scenario, with many having linked their future destiny to NATO.

In Estonia, we have have reported on this active fear of the population when meeting with members of the Kaitseliit, an auxiliary defence organisation composed of civilians, generally nationalists aligned with the extreme right, that they train in the use of weapons in order to obstruct an alleged invasion on the part of the Russian federation. It is difficult to say if it is more a fantasy or a case of a common group thinking. In fact, women and men that comprise this auxiliary force believe that war is iminent. However there is a reality that is lost under this fundamental idea: that every year gunshot crimes have been increasing every year.