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| Estonian volunteers rush to join militia | |||||||||
| 2015-09-16 | |||||||||
The Defence League of the Baltic State has grown 10 percent to almost 16,000 soldiers since Russian President Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea last year and support for rebels in eastern Ukraine raised security fears in the small NATO nation. "Young people today want to do their bit for the defence of their country," medic Riho Mannik, 35, said near a dug-in mortar position during the exercise of 700 volunteers, near the village of Pala 160 kms (100 miles) from the Russian border. Mannik, who works as an ambulance team leader in his normal job, said young people can also learn skills from the military to help "their civilian life and their job prospects."
Soldiers in camouflage gear run around the forest's hills and gullies and eventually, exercise umpires with blue tags on their uniforms say the attackers have suffered heavy losses and been repulsed. But they are expected to regroup and hit the dug-in positions again in the exercise, dubbed "Northern Frog". Apart from worries about Ukraine, many Estonians were angered by the sentencing in Russia last month of an Estonian police officer, Eston Kohver, to 15 years in prison on charges of espionage. Tallinn say he was illegally abducted at gunpoint from a border crossing in September 2014 by Russians using radio jamming equipment and smoke grenades. Russia says Kohver was on Russian territory. "The kidnapping ... made communication security and cyber defence even more important parts of our defence," Lieutenant Colonel Marek Laanisto, commander the Viru district of the Defence League, said as soldiers wearing headphones in a light truck tapped away on laptops. In the first half of this year, the number of soldiers in the Defence League, under the command of the Estonian Ministry of Defence and military HQ, rose by 504 to 15,577. Numbers surged by 935 in 2014, almost all after Russia's annexation of Crimea in March. By contrast, just 324 people joined in all of 2013.
The smallest of the three Baltic countries, Estonia has maintained conscription for men over 18 since independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, so it has a reserve of 60,000 who have completed basic military training. Many in the Defence League - aged from 18 with no upper limit although all have to pass a fitness test - volunteer their weekends and week nights for training and attending yearly exercises like Northern Frog. An emergency force, it can also be used to help in civil emergencies such as floods.
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 (a) There is a wiki article on Estonia. It was an independent country---specializing in piracy. Then Danish possession---Danes got tired of pirate raids. Than Teutonic Order possession. Then Swedish possession. Then, since 18th century, Russian possession. (b) If Russia want them, Russia will take them. However, Russian current policy toward "near-abroad" is Finlandization not occupation. (c) To me it seems obvious that Tranzis using Russia as a bugbear to distract the, small, part of Western populations still capable of opposing them. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2015-09-16 02:27 |