US and UK army parade in Estonia, 300 meters from Russia

Europe, News February 25, 2015 , by IRIA No Comments

NATO member Estonia has held a military parade in border town of Narva, just 300 meters from the Russian border. Tallinn is a long-time critic of Moscow, which it accuses of having an aggressive policy towards the Baltic nation.

Armored vehicles from the US Army’s Second Cavalry Regiment and British troops were officially taking part in a military parade marking Estonia’s Independence Day, but the choice of location was deeply symbolic.

Over 140 pieces of NATO military hardware took part in the parade, including four US armored personnel carriers M1126 Stryker flying stars-and-stripes. Another foreign nation, the Netherlands, provided four Swedish-made Stridsfordon 90 tracked combat vehicles (designated CV9035NL Mk III by the Dutch).

Estonia also showed off its own howitzers, anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, armored vehicles and other hardware. Over 1,400 troops also marched the streets of Narva.

The Nato-led parade comes as Russian-backed separatists continue to battle Kiev government troops in eastern Ukraine, with fears rising of a separatist assault on the key coastal city of Mariupol.

“History has taught us that if we do not defend ourselves, nobody else will,” General Riho Teras, Estonia’s chief of staff, said at the parade.

“The events in Ukraine that have kept the entire world awake, demonstrate very clearly that we ourselves must maintain security,” he added.

“Narva is a part of NATO no less than New York or Istanbul, and NATO defends every square meter of its territory,” Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas said in a speech in capital, Tallinn.

Around 100 Dutch, Spanish, Latvian and Lithuanian troops also marched in the snow alongside some 1,300 Estonian soldiers to mark the independence of the formerly Soviet-ruled republic.

The city has a large number of ethnic Russians and a strong pro-autonomy movement, with some Estonian politicians fearing that it could be exploited now by Russia to saw dissent.