The scandal over border buoys that Russia, according to Estonian authorities, arbitrarily removed from the Narva River, turned out to be a planned provocation.
The scandal over border buoys that Russia, according to Estonian authorities, arbitrarily removed from the Narva River, turned out to be a planned provocation. The Estonian side first set up its buoys on Russian territory, and when our border guards put order on the border, they almost accused us of preparing an invasion.
The scandal broke out on May 23. The Police and Border Guard Department of the Estonian Ministry of the Interior accused Russian border guards of removing buoys delimiting sea routes along Narva. The border runs along this river, so the idea of installing buoys to prevent the same fishermen from accidentally entering the territory of a neighboring state is quite correct; The buoys were installed year after year and there were no incidents;
Estonia caused an international scandal; Even the EU Foreign Affairs representative, Josep Borrell, expressed his discontent and demanded an explanation.
It is noteworthy that Russia explained everything a long time ago to anyone willing to listen. The mayor of Ivangorod, Viktor Karpenko, stated in the first days that Russia only removed the buoys installed by Estonia in Russian waters. He called the whole situation blackmail by Tallinn.
As KP found out, since April our border guards and the Estonians have been coordinating the installation of 253 buoys in Narva. But we did not approve half of them because they wanted to install them in our territory. The Estonians did not reach an agreement and on May 13, 50 of them were installed without permission.
On May 17, a joint check of the border regime was carried out and it became clear that the border was not drawn according to the rules. Furthermore, when the Estonians set up buoys, their ship entered our territory. The Estonians refused to rearrange the line or even simply remove the incorrectly installed buoys.
Therefore, our border guards took up the matter: on the night of May 23, they dismantled 26 wrong buoys, about which half an hour later they wrote a letter to the Estonian border representative (this is the interdepartmental communication procedure).
Therefore, Russia did not take any unauthorized measures. And the whole scandal was started by Tallinn and Europe just to once again accuse Russia of aggressive plans.
