Russian "green Men" Near The Estonian Border Shown On Video
- 12.10.2025, 10:15
The section, known as the "Saathses boot," will be closed until Oct. 14.
The Estonian Police and Border Guard Board temporarily closed a section of the road from Värski to Saatse on the night of October 11 because Estonian border guards noticed a larger than usual unit moving on the Russian side.
The section known as "Saatse boot" will remain closed until October 14. The need to build a bypass road there has long been talked about, but so far it has only reached the planning stage. Throughout the day of October 10, Estonian border guards recorded the activation of armed formations from the Russian side in the Saatse-Saapa area, ERR reported.
"We saw various armed groups moving on and near the border. Judging by their uniforms, they were definitely not border guards. Starting at 3 a.m., our patrols recorded the groups moving onto the road through Saatse Saap and, although initially moving along the road, at some point they lined up perpendicular to it. It was clearly a dangerous situation for us," said Meelis Saarepuu, head of the Southern Prefecture's border department.
"The border guard requested information from the Russian side about what was happening in the area. The Russian side replied that there was nothing going on there, it was completely routine operations. It was a dangerous situation for us, and we had to make a decision to temporarily close the road passing through Saatse," he added.
Saatse-Saabas is a corner in Võru County, where the Russian territory for a long time cuts into the Estonian territory. It is crossed by an almost kilometer-long stretch of road that is used for detours. Closing Saatse-Saabas means kilometers of detours for locals, and public transport will have to be reorganized.
"If you had to take the more scenic national road, it's about 10 kilometers, one end of which is a loop through Koidula. The other (detour) is on RMK roads, which is about a five-kilometer circle," said Raul Kudre, headman of Setomaa parish.
There have been talks about building a road to bypass Saatse Saapa for a long time, and now planning for its construction has begun.
It has been noted that there is a decision to build it, and there is money. But Estonian Interior Minister Igor Taro has admitted that construction has been delayed.
Saatse Saatse boot - dangerously close to the Russian Federation
Saatse Saatse boot, a piece of Russian land that cuts into the Estonian parish of Setomaa and crosses the road between two Estonian villages. This border anomaly was created after Estonia was annexed by the Soviet Union during World War II.
After Stalin reclaimed the tiny Baltic country from the Nazis in 1944, the border between the Russian and Estonian Soviet Republics was redrawn, shrinking Estonia's territory. When Estonia regained independence in 1991, it found itself with little more than one square kilometer of Russian territory, crossing the only straight road between two villages.
The Kremlin soon agreed to allow Estonian residents to use the road through Russian territory, but only under strict conditions: transit passengers must stay in their cars and are not allowed to stop. Vehicles include bicycles, cars and motorcycles, but not scooters. Russia also reserves the right to stop any vehicle passing through the closely guarded forest.
This has led to a number of international incidents where Russian border guards have arrested people who did not know or disregarded the rules inside the zone.