From higher defence budgets to tighter control over social media, liberals are quietly backing a more muscular state they once resisted, arguing it is the price of keeping European freedoms alive.
As warnings of possible provocations from Moscow pile up, a system of ditches, trenches and bunkers is beginning to take shape along the 950-km border that the Baltic states share with Russia.
The latest results of the annual survey show that Estonians’ willingness to take part in defending the country remains high overall. However, the biggest perceived threats are misinformation and cyberattacks, not a major military conflict.
Estonia is one of Nato’s smallest members, but its experience of Russian occupation has contributed to high spending on defence and preparedness for attack.
![Kaupo Rosin, director general of the Estonian foreign intelligence service: 'Most [Russian] soldiers have a low IQ level; they are convicts from the lowest strata of society. This is not an army you could use for sophisticated operations. Instead, they keep sending in troops blindly, sending them to their deaths'](https://static.euobserver.com/2026/04/1.webp)
Estonia’s foreign intelligence service chief Kaupo Rosin reflects on a whole-of-society approach to defence, one unexpected threat to Europe, and what he realised at 16.
Patronising and inaccurate commentary from Western pundits aids Vladimir Putin’s aggression, writes Edward Lucas.
The Polish government is reaching for a workaround to access European loans for rearmament after president Karol Nawrocki vetoed a historic law enabling the EU’s SAFE programme. Meanwhile, an information campaign is spreading narratives of a ‘Narva separatist republic’ in Estonia, and a spy scandal is unraveling Slovenia’s election campaign.
At the start of last year, all 27 EU member states were signed up to the Ottawa Convention, banning the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel mines. Now Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Finalnd have withdrawn — with silence from Brussels.