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Estonia Warns Border Energy Site Near Russia Is Nearly Impossible to Defend
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Estonia’s top military commander warned that the country would likely be unable to save the Auvere power plant in wartime, according to ERR on March 26.
The facility sits just two kilometers from the Russian border, leaving almost no time to respond.
Andrus Merilo, commander of the Estonian Defense Forces, made the remarks after a drone hit the Auvere plant area during a large overnight Ukrainian strike on targets inside Russia.
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“An honest assessment is that in wartime we would definitely lose the Auvere power plant, regardless of how many resources we invest in its protection,” Merilo stated on the Esimene stuudio program. He also stressed that in peacetime, Estonia cannot simply fire toward Russia, because that could trigger escalation.
Merilo noted that the attack appeared to involve at least 100 drones launched in three waves, a pattern meant to overwhelm air defenses.
He added that the drone that reached Auvere may have been a strike drone whose warhead did not detonate, though it was more likely a decoy designed to drain air defense resources.
Merilo argued that the plant’s vulnerability is primarily a matter of geography, not just military capacity.
He called for stronger physical protection of critical infrastructure, pointing to measures used in Ukraine such as concrete barriers, sandbags, and nets, while warning that a total protective shield over every key site is neither technically nor financially realistic.
The concerns around Auvere also come amid reports of Russian monitoring activity targeting Estonia’s energy infrastructure.
The reported deployment of surveillance aerostats near Estonia’s border points to a lower-cost Russian effort to watch critical energy sites without openly breaching NATO airspace.
The monitoring focuses on facilities operated by Eesti Energia in the Ida-Viru region, including power plants and oil shale operations that are central to Estonia’s energy system.
According to Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, the balloons allow persistent reconnaissance of infrastructure while complicating a direct military or legal response from the Estonian side.
The agency considered that such activity could support future sabotage or cyber planning while also increasing security burdens for European partners protecting regional energy independence.
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