Estonia says Russia removed buoys in ‘border incident’

Tallinn said Moscow had only challenged the placement of the floating markers – designed to prevent boats from accidentally entering foreign waters – since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022.

“This year, Russia announced that it disagreed with the position of about half of the planned buoys,” the Estonian border guard said in a statement.

“At 3 a.m., border guards discovered that the border guards of the Russian Federation had begun removing floating markers,” it said.

Kallas said the Baltic state had asked Russia for information.

“This is a border incident and we are currently investigating the exact circumstances,” she told reporters.

She added: “Russia uses border-related tools to create fear and unrest, thereby sowing insecurity in our societies. We see a broader pattern of this.”

The incident occurred immediately following another regional border dispute involving Russia.

The Baltic state of Lithuania said on Wednesday it had summoned a Russian diplomatic envoy over plans to unilaterally expand Russia’s maritime border into Lithuanian and Finnish waters, warning that the move could be a hybrid war tactic.

According to a draft resolution published by the Russian Defense Ministry on Tuesday, Moscow plans to expand its territorial waters by changing its maritime border in the Baltic Sea with Finland and Lithuania from January 2025.

The newly established geographical coordinates would lead to Moscow declaring the Finnish and Lithuanian maritime areas as Russian territory.

According to the document, Russia’s borders would be changed in the Kaliningrad region and the Gulf of Finland.

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