Unity tested in city just across river from Russia

It was perhaps inevitable that a proposal to build a military base on the outskirts of Narva, Estonia's third largest city, located on the country's border with Russia, featured in last week's TV debate among the candidates vying to be mayor.

- Daniel Boffey

Days earlier, three MiG-31 Russian fighter jets had entered and stayed in Estonia's airspace for 12 minutes, prompting Estonia to call rare article 4 consultations with Nato allies over a risk to "territorial integrity, political independence or security". Estonia upped the stakes by bringing the issue to the UN security council, where western allies warned of dire consequences if there were further breaches.

It might be thought, then, that there would be loud acclaim for a military presence in Narva, which is separated from Russia by a 101-metre-wide river, traversed by a "Bridge of Friendship" on which the Estonians have built a line of 3ft concrete "dragon's teeth" and a heavy security gate.

But Narva, closer to St Petersburg than the Estonian capital, Tallinn, is complex: about 98% of its population is primarily Russian speaking and, while not a homogenous group, international news can be perceived quite differently here. For some, it is consumed through the prism of Russian TV, banned in Estonia but easily accessible. The Kremlin has denied the airspace breach happened the "Nazis" in Tallinn, 210km west of Narva, were doing what the "global war party" does.

Others see such claims as fake news but worry about poking the Russian bear. Estonian troops are welcome, they say, but not Nato.