The European Union on Friday condemned Russia for starting to remove buoys marking the country’s border with Estonia on the Narva River.
“This border incident is part of a broader pattern of provocative behaviour and hybrid actions by Russia, including its maritime and land borders in the Baltic Sea region. Such actions are unacceptable,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.
Estonian border guards said on Thursday that their Russian counterparts removed more than 20 buoys marking the border in the Narva River, which separates the two countries, overnight.
Prime Minister Kaja Kallas called it a border incident.
Estonia pointed out that it was only after February 2022, when Russia started its large-scale invasion of Ukraine, that Moscow challenged the installation of buoys, which are used to prevent ships from accidentally straying into foreign waters.
This week, it was also reported that Russia was planning to revise its maritime borders with Lithuania and Finland in the Baltic Sea.
According to a document drafted by the Russian Defence Ministry and quoted by The Moscow Times, the Kremlin intends to declare part of the Baltic Sea east of the Gulf of Finland, as well as near the towns of Baltiysk and Zelenogradsk in the Kaliningrad region, as its internal maritime waters.
The document suggests that on the border with Lithuania, the Curonian Spit area, Cape Taran, the area south of Cape Taran, and the Baltic Spit would be revised.
The Finnish broadcaster YLE reported later on Wednesday that information about plans to change the maritime borders with Finland and Lithuania had disappeared from the Russian Defence Ministry’s website.
The document was removed from the website after a military diplomatic source told Russian news agencies that Moscow had no intention of revising the borders in the Baltic Sea.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said on Thursday that Vilnius was seeking a unified response from the European Union and NATO to Russia’s intentions to revise the maritime borders.
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French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Friday expressed their solidarity with Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland following Russia’s provocations.
“Russia has stepped up its provocations on the borders of the EU in Estonia, Finland and Lithuania,” Séjourné wrote on the social network X.
“We express our full solidarity with Estonia, Finland and Lithuania in the face of these unacceptable aggressive actions. We are closely monitoring the situation alongside our allies, who are acting calmly,“ he added.
For her part, Baerbock wrote on X: “Russia is stirring up trouble at the borders of the EU. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our friends in Estonia, Finland and Lithuania and do not accept this aggressive behaviour.”
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