Baltic Provocations Heat Up: Estonia Again Plays with Fire, This Time Gets Burned
On Tuesday another provocation in the Baltic Sea-Gulf of Finland strategic zone occurred when Estonia attempted to seize a Russian “shadow fleet” oil tanker:
Estonian Naval Commander Ivo Vark told Reuters the Jaguar was near Naissaar Island off the Estonian capital Tallinn when it was contacted by radio on Tuesday afternoon to check its status because it was sailing "without a nationality."
Recall that the Western-fabricated moniker ‘shadow fleet’ merely means a tanker which is not registered in accordance with Western EU/G7 “sanctions”, which themselves do not apply to Russia in the slightest, since Russia is not party to those organizations. Here an Estonian military rep acknowledges that they attempt to check all Russian ships for compliance, which primarily means making sure the ships have proper “insurance”:
Except one small problem—you see, the EU’s sanctions specifically barred Russia from obtaining normal Western insurance for its ships. Here’s Bloomberg admitting to this fact:
Another source:
The Financial Times, citing its own sources, wrote about the decision of the UK and EU authorities to ban insurance for merchant ships that transport oil from Russia. This decision actually closes the largest insurance market Lloyd's of London for Russian tankers and limits the possibility of exporting crude oil from the Russian Federation.
The methods of the West’s criminal economic terrorism are clear: they cut Russia out of the largest insurance market, then attempt to “enforce” Russia’s “illegal” lack of insurance for its ships. The only definition of a “shadow fleet” tanker is one which is not registered in London’s insurance market, because it was deplatformed by the criminal ‘Rules Based Order.’
Swell how that works, no?
Getting back: The ship’s crew took this video of Estonian military choppers attempting to intimidate them into pulling into an Estonian port:
From a screenshot of their dashboard we can see the exact coordinates of the ship at 59°43'25.2"N, 24°27'50.5"E:
As can be seen the ship is technically transiting what would normally be international waters, but due to the narrowness of the Gulf of Finland, both Estonia and Finland’s EEZs (Exclusive Economic Zone) extend outward to cover virtually the entire channel. I’ve written many times before about how Estonia and Finland were planning to play EEZ games in order to restrict Russia’s internationally accepted right of passage here.
But Russia is no longer tolerating this behavior. It sent an Su-35S to buzz Estonian assets, which immediately scurried off, allowing the Russian ship to successfully continue navigating toward St. Petersburg. Estonia claims that the Su-35S violated its airspace in speeding to the scene of the crime—well, one supposes that’s a justified tit-for-tat given that Estonia violated international law for safe maritime passage in illegally obstructing the ship.
More detailed summary:
🇪🇺⚔️🇷🇺 NATO aircraft and Estonian navy attempted to seize a tanker of the "Russian shadow fleet"
▪️The vessel, flying the Gabonese flag, was heading to the Russian port of Primorsk via the Gulf of Finland.
▪️Estonia has activated the entire Estonian fleet patrol boat “Raiu”, patrol ship “Kurvits”, helicopters and drones.
▪️A MiG-29 of the Polish Air Force also took part in the operation.
▪️At first, they tried to force the tanker's crew to take a course into Estonian territorial waters; after that failed, they tried to land on it from helicopters and boats.
▪️The tanker's crew increased speed, thwarting both landing attempts.
▪️According to the norms of international maritime law, an attack on a ship in neutral waters is considered an act of piracy.
RVvoenkor
But where it gets interesting is reportedly NATO-member Portugal sent an F-16 to intercept the Su-35S
According to the General Staff of the Estonian Ministry of Defence, the Russian fighter was in the area of the Juminda Peninsula for less than one minute on Tuesday evening, while the Su-35S had its transponder turned off and did not communicate with the Estonian air traffic control service.
Portuguese Air Force F-16 fighter jets deployed to Ämari as part of the NATO Baltic Air Policing Mission, responded to the incident and conducted a reconnaissance flight.
This video was circulated which appears to show an F-16 tailing an Su-35—however its provenance is not certain, as I was not able to independently verify its authenticity:
It may be an old video as the atmospheric conditions appear to differ from that of the ship’s video, although this could come down to camera settings, or the interception happened a bit later. Either way, take it as a ‘dramatization’ reference.
One Russian commentator concludes:
They demanded that the captain of the vessel change course and ... enter Estonian territorial waters in order to physically capture it there. But the captain of the vessel was not a coward and sent the pirates on a walking journey "to the South". Literally immediately, a Russian Su-35S fighter appeared in the sky, demonstrating by its actions its readiness to protect the peaceful vessel from pirate capture by a NATO trough under the Estonian flag. This forced the unlucky pirates to retreat. And the tanker arrived in Primorsk and began loading.
This has been part of a long-term plan by the West to provoke Russia into further actions which can be characterized as ‘aggression’ in order to maintain the narrative of Russia as the bad guy, so that the European deep state can continue mobilizing its citizens for war against Russia.
But most people forget the key linchpin to this whole scenario:
Article 5 of NATO’s infamous charter only recognizes attacks on NATO constituents’ territory. In fact, Article 5 is governed by Article 6 for this very purpose:
Article 6
For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:
on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;
on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.
Thus, if next time Russia chooses to open fire on the Estonian ships prohibiting freedom of navigation, the puny chihuahua state will have no NATO guarantees backing its uncalled-for aggression; Russia is free to obliterate the Estonian Navyconsisting of six total commissioned ships.
Top Putin aide Patrushev recently noted:
Patrushev: Moscow will not allow any encroachment on its national interests in the Baltics
In the current difficult military-political situation, the Baltic Fleet is strengthening its positions, reliably ensuring the safety of navigation and preventing provocations by the naval forces of enemy states, said Nikolai Patrushev, aide to the Russian President and chairman of the Russian Maritime Committee.
Now Russia has given a tit-for-tat response, as today brought us the breaking newsthat Russia has seized a cargo ship carrying shale oil from Estonia’s Sillamäe port:
These super large tankers leaving the port were forced to go partly through Russian territorial waters via agreed upon rules due to shallow shoals hugging the Estonian coast; but now Estonian officials have claimed they will reroute their tankers through more dangerous waters to avoid Russian territory.
The incomprehensibly servile Estonians clutched pearls and pretended it’s Russia that’s acting “unpredictable”:
"Today's incident shows that Russia's behavior continues to be unpredictable, so be directed to the ships referred to as along the second trajectory," said Tsahkna.
Maybe Russia was merely making sure the tanker’s insurance was in compliance?
But of course, unelected Reichsfuhrer von der Leyen has already embarked on the next stage of escalations which will virtually ensure that Baltic parakeets will be forced to continue agitating against Russia:
The secretly-agreed-upon plan—just like the seminal RAND paper to ‘unbalance and overextend’ Russia by arming Ukraine—revolves around increasing the tension precisely on Russia’s key pressure points, one of which is the Baltic zone, Kaliningrad, etc. That means we can expect more strong-arm tactics against Russian ships illegally barred from obtaining insurance—but now Russia will be strengthening its Baltic Fleet more than ever in response.
Finnish propagandists have been claiming Russia is already taking some kind of actions around Gogland:
In the meantime, this comical excerpt from the latest Estonian defense exercises gives us a look into how the mighty Baltic bruisers are training to take down the Crazy Ivan:
Finishing off the wounded "Ivan" as part of the Estonian Defense Forces' "Hedgehog-2025" exercises — local media boast that rangers, reservists, and members of Kaitseliit took part in them near the Russian border.
But the main thing is that soldiers from more than 10 NATO countries came to the exercises: Great Britain, France, the USA, Canada, Latvia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, and Portugal. Observers came from Japan, Israel, and... Ukraine.
Fearsome indeed—how long do you reckon they’d last on the front? All that hollering is sure to at least drown out the bombinations of distant drones:
Here’s a perfect reply to the above, which underscores what I’ve been saying—read very carefully:
[T]he so-called “shadow fleet” a) isn't even Russian and b) isn’t illegal. It refers to oil tankers operating without Western insurance — often older ships, flagged to third countries, avoiding sanctions compliance. They’re just outside the Western regulatory and insurance framework, which is not inherently unlawful.
Third, these ships are sailing through international waters — including the Danish Straits and other key routes in the Baltic. Under UNCLOS, they have every right to pass. No law is being broken.
This is all that Europe has left in their game plan: they failed to out-produce Russia in war, they then failed to trick Russia into an early ceasefire, now they plan to orchestrate an endless escalation spiral so that—with the help of their totally captured and non-independent state media organs—they can propagandize their citizenry with the threat of the Russian ‘specter’ in order to try and build a concensus toward utilizing all remaining public funds to mobilize a vast war machine to stop Russia. It is existential for them: if Russia wins this war, the European cabal will crumble forever—the sun will set on the ‘Western Liberal Order’ forevermore.