The silent war going on inside a city at Nato’s eastern border – which could be Putin’s next target
Home to one of the few crossing points into Russia, the city of Narva is seen by Estonian border force officials as “the end and the beginning of the free world”.
Located on Nato’s eastern border, the city has become the constant target of hybrid warfare tactics employed by Russia – with the Kremlin sending in surveillance blimps on an almost weekly basis and removing Estonian border infrastructure in the dead of night.
“Everything that is on the other side of the border, I wouldn’t use [the term] ‘free world’ to describe that,” says Egert Belitsev, director general of the Estonian border force.
But not everyone in Narva sees it as Belitsev does.
Some 96 per cent of the 56,000 people living in Narva speak Russian as their first language, while 34 per cent of the population are Russian citizens.
“They live inside the Russian cultural and propaganda space,” says Dr Maria Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova, director of Narva’s museum.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that in 2022, Vladimir Putin indicated that he had his sights set on Narva, suggesting that it would be justifiable to “take back and secure” the border city.
The Narva Museum – which faces directly towards Russia – has found itself at the centre of the flaring tensions after conducting a number of anti-Putin stunts and hosting exhibitions that highlight Russian propaganda and war crimes.
For the last two years, the museum has hung a banner reading “Putin is a war criminal” on the side of Narva’s castle, facing towards Ivangorod, a Russian border town that lies just 101 metres away.
Each year, the banner has been timed to coincide with Russia’s 9 May Victory Day celebrations taking place in Ivangorod. There is a clear sense in Estonia that the celebrations, which are amplified on huge speakers, are not put on for the benefit of those living in Russia.
“They do it for the people of Narva,” says Belitsev. “The stage is directed towards Estonia. They use the biggest speakers they have in Russia. It’s not for Ivangorod.”
Russian officials demanded that Estonian border representatives take the anti-Putin banner down (they refused), but it wasn’t just on the other side of the Narva Reservoir that the banner sparked outrage.
While the museum received a wave of support from other Estonian cities, Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova says she and her family received death threats, abuse and harassment from some residents of Narva.
Zurab Janes, who works at the museum, says his boss received emails, texts and Facebook posts threatening her. “They threatened to rape, kill, hang her. They photoshopped pictures of Maria with her head cut off.” Even her son received disturbing photoshopped images, he says.
