10 November 2015 Ministry of Defence and The Rt Hon Michael Fallon MP

UK Armed Forces are leading a NATO Land training exercise in the Baltic states, underlining continued support to the region.
 

September 15, 2015: Strategy page

Fear of Russia is creating a new military alliance in northern Europe. Since 2014 Sweden and Finland, while not NATO members, have been training with other Baltic states (Denmark, Norway, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) that are. This year Sweden and Finland participated (along with 15 other nations) in the BALTOPS naval exercise. The 5,600 troops involved were mainly concerned with confirming that everyone’s equipment, procedures and communications worked as needed for joint naval and amphibious operations.

One of the things the 2015 BALTOPS was concerned with was defending Gotland; a key Swedish island between Sweden and Latvia. Whoever controls Gotland dominates the eastern Baltic and access to most of the Swedish coastline. BALTOPS planners also examined retaking Gotland if Russia were to seize it, which Sweden sees as an increasing possibility. Sweden now plans to increase the Gotland garrison and build more fortifications.

BALTOPS also worked on amphibious operations in the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia), which are now NATO members and threatened by Russia. Sweden and Finland have long been allies and are increasing their military cooperation and coordination.

17 juin 2015 by Royal Air Force

May 30, 2015: Strategy Page

Tiny Estonia (population 1.3 million) has formed a Cyber War militia because Russia keeps threatening another major Cyber War offensive. Despite its small size Estonia is the most technically advanced (on a per-capita basis) nation in East Europe and was able to recruit several hundred skilled volunteers who are hard at work pooling their knowledge and skills to better handle more Cyber War aggression from Russia.

Estonia borders Russia and is a member of NATO. That last bit makes Russia reluctant to come in with tanks to take over like they did twice in the 1940s. Russia made a major effort to crush Estonia via major Internet based attacks in 2007. Estonia survived that “invasion” but admitted that this sort of Russian aggression caused great financial harm to Estonia. In the wake of these Russian Cyber War attacks Estonia demanded that the UN and NATO declare this sort of thing terrorism and dealt with accordingly. NATO tried to be helpful, but that wasn’t enough. The UN was even less helpful as the UN has a hard time getting anything done when Russia is involved because Russia is one of the handful of founding members that has a veto.

NATO did make an effort and in 2008 established a Cyber Defense Center in Estonia. This was the most tangible NATO response to Estonian calls for NATO to declare Cyber War on Russia. NATO agreed to discuss the issue but never took any action against Russia. The Cyber Defense Center was a consolation prize and studies Cyber War techniques and incidents and attempts to coordinate efforts by other NATO members to create Cyber War defenses and offensive weapons. NATO say that this appears to have deterred Russia from making another Cyber War attack. The Estonians are not so sure as Russia went ahead and invaded Georgia (a nation of four million in the Caucasus) in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and still makes very public threats against Estonia.

  Cyber Wars have actually been going on since the late 1990s and they are getting worse. It started in the 1990s as individuals attacked the web sites in other nations because of diplomatic disputes. This was usually stirred up by some international incident. India and Pakistan went at it several times, and Arabs and Israelis have been trashing each other’s web sites for years. The Arabs backed off at first, mainly because the Israeli hackers are much more effective. But in the last few years the Arabs have acquired more skills and are back at it. Chinese and Taiwanese hackers go at each other periodically, and in 2001, Chinese and American hackers clashed because of a collision off the Chinese coast between an American reconnaissance aircraft and a Chinese fighter. That was just the beginning for China, which now regularly makes major hacking attacks on the U.S. and other NATO members.

Since 2005 these Cyber Wars have escalated from web site defacing and shutting down sites with massive amounts of junk traffic (DDOS attacks), to elaborate espionage efforts against American military networks. The attackers are believed to be Chinese, and some American military commanders are calling for a more active defense (namely, a counterattack) to deal with the matter.

The Russian attacks against Estonia were the result of Estonia moving a statue, honoring Russian World War II soldiers, from the center of the capital, to a military cemetery in the countryside. The Estonians always saw the statue as a reminder of half a century of Russian occupation and oppression. Russia saw the statue move as an insult to the efforts of Russian soldiers to liberate Estonia and enable the Russians to occupy the place for half a century. The basic problem here is that most Russians don't see their Soviet era ancestors as evil people, despite the millions of Russians and non-Russians killed by the Soviet secret police. The Russians are very proud of their defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, ignoring the fact that the Soviet government was just biding its time before it launched its own invasion of Germany and Europe in general.

While many Russians would have backed a military attack on Estonia to retaliate for the insult by an ungrateful neighbor, this approach was seen as imprudent. Estonia is part of NATO and an attack on one NATO member is considered an attack on all. It's because of this Russian threat that Estonia was so eager to get into NATO. The Russians, however, believe that massive Cyber War attacks will not trigger a NATO response. They were so sure of this, that some of the early DDOS attacks were easily traced back to computers owned by the Russian government. When that got out, the attacks stopped for a few days, and then resumed from what appear to be illegal botnets. Maybe some legal botnets as well. Russian language message boards were full of useful information on how to join the holy war against evil Estonia. There's no indication that any Russians are afraid of a visit from the Russian cyber-police for any damage they might do to Estonia. And the damage has been significant, amounting to millions of dollars. While no one has been injured, Estonia is insisting that this attack, by Russia, should trigger the mutual defense provisions of the NATO treaty. It didn't, but it was a reminder to all that Cyber War is very real except when it comes time to fight back.

Brussels - 19 May, 2015 by European Defence Agency

16 février 2015 by mhq pao

The Commander of Estonian Defense Forces, Major General Riho TERRAS, accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel Rain JANO, Captain Indrek ELLING, Chief of STRATCOM Mr. Vallo TOOMET, Estonian Prime Minister representative Mr. Kadri PEETERS, Estonian MoD representative Mr. Sven SAKKOV, arrived on Saturday 14 February 2015 in Bamako, visiting the European Union Training Mission – Mali.

The distinguished visitord have been greeted by the Mission Commander of EUTM Mali, General Alfonso GARCIA-VAQUERO PRADAL.

The EUTM Mali Chief Of Staff presented a complex brief at EUTM Headquarters in Bamako, and then the distinguished visitors departed for Koulikoro, where the TTF commander presented a brief regarding the training mission followed by a visit of the Training Camp.

20-02-2015 Defensie.NL

Dutch infantrymen are currently in Estonia to demonstrate the possibilities offered by the CV90 infantry fighting vehicle. Estonia recently bought a total of 44 CV90s from the Netherlands. These vehicles are to be delivered in 2016, by which time the Estonians want to be able to handle the vehicles.

Estonia bought the surplus CV90s in order to increase their firepower. In addition, the Estonian army wishes to step up its military exercises with NATO partners in view of the current developments on the eastern border of the Baltic country.

January 4, 2015: Strategy Page

Estonia has become the latest East European nation to buy second hand, but quite modern, armored vehicles from West European nations that feel they don’t need them anymore. In this case the Netherlands is selling 44 used, but well cared for, V90 IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicles) to Estonia. These CV90s entered Dutch service between 2008 and 2011 and the ones Estonia is receiving have at least two decades of useful life left in them.

Estonia is one of the Baltic States that were often part of the Russian Empire but would rather cultivate cultural and economic ties with countries to the west. Estonia is also ethnically linked to Finland as both nations speak a similar Central Asian language (which is also similar to what is spoken in Hungary). In addition to sharing a language, all three of these countries also fear Russian aggression.

Development of the CV90 began in 1988, with production starting in late 1993. The 28 ton tracked vehicle has a crew of three and carries seven passengers (usually infantrymen). With a top road speed of 70 kilometers an hour, the CV90 can go 300 kilometers on internal fuel. The vehicle turret carries a 30mm autocannon and a coaxial 7.62mm machine-gun. Also in the turret is a thermal imager for night operations. The vehicle armor protects against projectiles of up to 30mm caliber.

There are several variants of the CV90, carrying different weapons (120mm mortar, anti-tank missiles, 120mm gun, 25mm gun, 30mm gun, 105mm gun, anti-aircraft radar, and missiles). The CV90 is 6.55 meters (20.3) feet long and 3.1 meters (9.6 feet) wide. Average cost of a new CV90 was about $5 million each. Estonia is paying about $3.2 million each for theirs. The Swedish army has about 555 CV90s, Switzerland 185, Finland 102, Denmark 45, and Netherlands 193. Several of the original owners of the CV90 upgraded them with things like more armor, better electronics and air conditioning. West European users have been quite satisfied with the Swedish made CV90.

16.12.2014 par Muriel Pomponne correspondante à Moscou - RFI

Uno Puusepp travaillait au département des écoutes de la police secrète estonienne, la KaPo Mais en fait, depuis 1996, il transmettait des informations aux services secrets russes. C'était un agent double. Fils d’officier soviétique, il avait lui-même proposé ses services au FSB, l'héritier du KGB. Il officiera pendant 15 ans, et n'aurait jamais demandé à être payé.

Grâce à cet informateur, Moscou a obtenu systématiquement des rapports sur les relations de la KaPo avec les Américains de l'Agence centrale du renseignement (CIA) et avec les autres services secrets occidentaux. L'espion estonien a également permis de démasquer des agents étrangers en Russie, dont Valeri Ojamae, qui a été condamné en 2001 à sept ans de camp à Moscou pour espionnage pour le compte de la Grande-Bretagne.

Pourquoi ces révélations maintenant ?

Dans son interview à la télévision russe, diffusée dans le cadre d'un documentaire intitulé Notre homme à Tallinn, l'ancien espion s'est aussi félicité d'avoir empêché l'installation par Washington d'un système d'écoutes dans l'ambassade russe à Tallinn, la capitale estonienne. Les services secrets occidentaux avaient fini par se douter de l’existence d’une « taupe », mais un autre que lui a été arrêté et condamné.

Pourquoi révéler l'affaire ? Les experts s’interrogent sur les motivations de Moscou. Est-ce une façon pour la Russie de revendiquer sa suprématie en matière d’espionnage, et de pousser  les pays occidentaux à abandonner toute coopération avec leurs collègues estoniens ? Ou bien pourrait-il y avoir d’autres affaires d’espionnage pour lesquelles se préparerait un échange d’agents démasqués ?

12/10/2014  Defence IQ Press

Estonia has put pen to paper on its largest defence procurement contract to date with the $171 million deal to buy 44 infantry combat vehicles from the Netherlands.

The Estonian Defence Forces will acquire the CV90 infantry vehicles from the Dutch government and are expected to enter service in 2016.

“The infantry vehicles will take the Estonian defence ability to a new level,” Defence Minister Sven Mikser said.

The deal comes at a time of increased regional tension as Russia continues its sabre rattling following the Ukrainian crisis. Other countries in the region such as Lithuania have begun bolstering their protected mobility capabilities in recent months.

Estonia has been working closely with the Netherlands for a range of defence supplies since 2004. Estonia has acquired over 1,100 trucks and SUVs, 500 trailers and staff containers and 81 SISU XA-188 armoured personnel carriers in the last decade.

Estonia’s largest defence deal before this was a $84.5 million contract with MBDA for its Mistral missiles.

Brussels - 28 October, 2014 European Defence Agency

Five Member States as well as Norway signed a new project arrangement earlier this month to start work on future Maritime Mine Counter Measures (MMCM) capabilities. Called MMCM-NG (New Generation), the project will run until 2017 and prepare the next generation of mine countermeasures ships.

Belgium, Estonia, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden as well as Norway agreed on 8 October 2014 to launch a new research project regarding future Maritime Mine Counter Measures (MMCM) capabilities. Dubbed MMCM-NG (New Generation), the project arrangement was signed at the European Defence Agency’s premises during a Steering Board of the Capabilities Directors. Germany is the project’s lead nation.

Easy to deploy and cheap to acquire, maritime mines and other underwater improvised explosive devices pose a real threat to naval forces and civilian ships by restricting freedom of movement in shallow waters, harbours and strategic choke points. Being able to detect, avoid, and defuse these weapons is therefore a key requirement for European navies.

Preparing the next generation

The MMCM-NG project has a planned duration of 36 months during which contributing Member States, based on an agreed operational concept, will work on a set of common requirements to prepare the future generation of mine countermeasures ships and systems that could become operational in the 2030 timeframe. At the end of this 3-year project, Member States will have gathered enough information to decide on the potential launch of a procurement phase for these new systems.

Compared to existing solutions, future MMCM capabilities are expected to bring increased flexibility through a modular “toolbox” comprising a range of systems adaptable to different platforms, environmental, or operational conditions. The use of unmanned vehicles will also be developed and new detection techniques could be introduced. Future MMCM operations are also expected to be conducted with state-of-the-art sensors and effectors carried and deployed from dedicated or hybrid platforms as well as from stationary or mobile shore installations.

Based on the different national requirements, several technical solutions will be assessed as part of the project. Standards, protocols and interfaces will be described and agreed upon commonly in order to ensure future interoperability and to enable synergies in the fields of training, logistics, and maintenance.

Background

The European Defence Agency conducts several activities in the maritime domain. One of the Agency’s largest programmes, called UMS (Unmanned Maritime Systems), brings together all EDA Member States under a single programme arrangement and 15 different coordinated projects that can be joined by any number of countries. EDA is also involved in the Marsur (Maritime Surveillance) project, which has been joined by 17 Member States as well as Norway to date. It has led to the development of a technical solution that connects European navies’ surveillance systems to improve global maritime awareness and enhance interoperability.

The Latvian Chief of Defence meeting British soldiers during a NATO training exercise

5 September 2014 Ministry of Defence and The Rt Hon Michael Fallon MP

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has signed a letter of intent with international partners to develop the Joint Expeditionary Force.

The letter of intent, signed with partners from Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Norway, aims to develop the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) so that it is fully operational before 2018.

The JEF is a pool of high readiness, adaptable forces that is designed to enhance the UK’s ability to respond rapidly, anywhere in the world, with like-minded allies, or on behalf of international organisations such as the UN or NATO.

The UK’s contribution will include the lead commando, airborne, armoured, aviation, air and maritime task groups.

The Defence Secretary said:

I am very pleased that we have signed a letter of intent with our partners to establish the Joint Expeditionary Force.

This will be developed around the UK’s existing high readiness units and will provide a capability that can respond anywhere in the world, in any environment, as part of a coalition, or on behalf of international organisations such as the UN and NATO.

We are stronger together. Our partners from Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Norway have all agreed to attach forces to the JEF when the time is right for us to stand together.

The signing ceremony took place with all 28 defence ministers in Cardiff aboard HMS Duncan on 4 September at the NATO Summit. During the signing, discussions took place on how the agreement will allow the UK and JEF partners to continue with the excellent operational co-operation that has been achieved to date in places like Afghanistan.

The force will provide the UK’s focus for developing flexible, rapid response forces for NATO, or other coalition operations, to meet together the challenges of an unpredictable world. Through the UK-led JEF, a model for others to follow as well as a focus for fairer defence burden-sharing is being provided.

For the latest updates visit the NATO Summit Wales 2014 page on GOV.UK and @NATOWales on Twitter.

The aim is to create a UK military framework, focused around its existing high readiness capabilities, that its partners can join up with. While it is the UK’s intention to fully integrate the UK’s JEF partners’ contributions before 2018, the JEF could deploy immediately if required.

8/9/2014 Strategy Page

Spc. Ruben W. Moulton III, a Virginia Beach, Va., native serving as a team leader for 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, fires a TOW missile weapon system July 29 at Estonia Â’s Tapa Training Area. The unit fired more than a dozen TOW missiles to train on engagement and destruction of enemy armor, fortifications and amphibious landing craft on the battlefield. Approximately 600 paratroopers from the brigade are in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which includes combined training exercises that foster cohesive relationships and demonstrate a commitment to NATO obligations. (Photo courtesy by Tanel Meos)