Estonian fighters harden themselves in contact with French soldiers

Any resemblance to a real threat is purely coincidental, but the message will no doubt reach the Kremlin… For 36 hours this weekend, the Estonian Defense League (EDL) trained to fight a conventional armed force which would attack his country. This fictitious invading army, only 2h30 drive from the Russian border, was played by 185 French soldiers and 90 British soldiers.

In freezing cold approaching -10 degrees, the 300 combatants of the Defense League, volunteer civilians responsible for protecting the territory, had been preparing traps on the ground for several weeks: mines (fictitious), hiding places, cameras of hunters discreetly placed in the woods to monitor the advance of the troops…

“It’s terrain they have mastered. They also use civilians to get intelligence on our positions. Civilians said they had seen the French. They sent their drone and then they prepared a mortar”, explains Captain Benoît.

“We improve our techniques”

What if after the invasion in Ukraine, Estonia was Vladimir Putin’s next goal? In any case, this is what the Baltic state, a member of NATO, is preparing for. Every month, new volunteers, civilians or former military, join the Estonian Defense League. “What we have learned here from this exercise is that we must expect the worst”, tells the microphone Europe 1 Sergeant Marco, 45, a former soldier who joined the defense league. “After what happened in Ukraine, a lot of people are joining us. So we are improving our techniques.”

Negative temperatures, freezing rains and marshy areas… For their part, the French soldiers, stationed in Tapa within the framework of NATO, have also touched on the conditions in which Russians and Ukrainians have been fighting for almost 10 months now.