Three Baltic Countries Are NATO’s Front Line Against Russia

 By Henry Srebrnik, Fredericton Daily Gleaner

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been on the frontlines of Europe’s confrontation with Russia. On Sept. 19, three Russian MiG-31 jets flew above Estonia before escorted back to their own side. European Union countries are considering building a “drone wall” to ramp up defences.

Canada is very involved in the region. Prime Minister Mark Carney visited Latvia in August. In Riga, he met with the Prime Minister of Latvia, Evika Silina, and announced Canada’s renewal of Operation REASSURANCE for another three years. It remains the Canadian Armed Forces’ largest overseas mission, with approximately 2,000 troops and 400 vehicles of all types currently deployed to defend NATO territory.

If the Baltic nations are nervous about the future, history suggests they have every reason to be. Although they are now members of NATO and the European Union, the west has not always proved a reliable ally in times of crises.

 This is nothing new. More than any other European nations, the three found themselves crushed between Nazism and communism in the 20^th century.  They freed themselves from tsarist Russia after the First World War, followed by precarious interwar independence, and then by first Soviet, then Nazi, and then again Soviet, occupation during the Second World War.

Re-incorporated into the Soviet Union, they suffered decades of subservience to Moscow, until renewed independence in 1991, so they have good historical reasons to fear Russia. The brutality and ruthlessness of the Soviet occupation of the three Baltic states is well known.

Given their past, all three countries spend heavily on defence. Latvia devotes almost five per cent of its GDP for protection, Lithuania will be increasing theirs to almost six per cent, and Estonia is raising its defence budget to 5.4 per cent.

Since they regained their sovereignty, these nations have in general fared well, Estonia in particular. It has transformed itself in a generation into a tech hub and undisputed leader in e-government. Starting with the success of Skype, the video-calling platform that was sold to eBay for $2.6 billion in 2005, Estonia today has built a thriving tech ecosystem. It has the most tech start-ups per capita in Europe with 10 start-ups valued at more than one billion dollars built in the country or by Estonian founders.

Estonia has raised its GDP per capita by 2,500 per cent, overtaking Greece, Portugal and even Poland. What transformed the country’s fortunes was a combination of free market shock therapy plus the embrace of technology. Estonia embarked on an unprecedented experiment with a flat 20 per cent income tax rate and tax-free reinvested corporate profits. It privatized state-owned assets and dismantled trade barriers.

For a country with few natural resources, a small population, and limited state capacity, technology was a logical way to deliver public services and accelerate economic development. Every citizen was given a digital ID at birth, as the key to accessing government services online.

But there is also a fair amount of alienation, especially among the ethnic Russians who make up 22.5 per cent of the population at large and 73 per cent in the north-eastern region around the cities of Narva and Sillimae.

Latvia, with the largest number of Russian speakers both in absolute terms and relative to its population, has faced arguably the greatest obstacles. Regarded by the country as Soviet “colonists,” they make up 24.5 per cent of Latvia’s population, and the wider pool of native Russian speakers account for 35 per cent of the country’s residents. The city of Daugavpils is 54 per cent ethnic Russian and 80 per cent of its residents speak Russian at home.

Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, most Russian state-sponsored television channels have been banned. A new law was passed that strips Latvian citizenship from Putin supporters with dual nationality. The deadline for eradicating school classes taught in the Russian language was brought forward to 2025. A poll found that only 23 per cent of Russian speakers felt they could express political opinions without fear of the consequences.

Unlike Estonia, the country has not done as well. Chaotic privatisation and lax regulation led to the emergence of politically influential oligarchs. Corruption and speculation were and remain rampant. Latvia has the second highest level of income inequality in the EU, after Bulgaria. Latvian politics became so fixated on the nationality question that it has neglected the state’s other duties.

Lithuania’s long experience of subjection to foreign powers was in some ways quite unlike those of its Baltic neighbours. It had more than 400 years of union with Poland, followed by absorption into the Russian empire in 1795. The new rulers banned the Lithuanian language altogether. Poland grabbed Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, in 1920, two years after both countries attained independence.

Lithuania has recently witnessed a sharp rise in Russian-speakers driven by the war in Ukraine. Current estimates suggest that over 200,000 Russian-speaking individuals now reside in the country, comprising both long-established ethnic Russian communities and newer arrivals. There is concern over their growing prominence. A law was even passed in 2024 mandating that foreign staff must serve customers in Lithuanian.

It seems the three Baltic states still confront issues revolving not just about Russia, but their own ethnic Russian inhabitants.