Narva rumors suggestion: No need for panic, no oxygen for fake grassroots campaigns, just a reasonable level of alertness.
Does anybody remember the term astroturfing? This means artificially creating or simulating a grassroots movement where there is none. Moscow is very good at initiating such myths.
No, it is not a mass “movement,” but a tiny Telegram account with just a couple of followers in the beginning and now around 1,000 as of March 23, 2026. Not only is this Telegram channel less relevant than the reporting suggests, but the signs of a mass mobilization of separatism in Estonia are also unlikely.
People know that they live better in the European Union than in the Russian Federation, and the idea of being forcibly mobilized for the war in Ukraine is not particularly attractive. Integration problems and the ideological influence of the USSR, as well as Russian propaganda among the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia, do of course exist and remain relevant factors for national security. Some Russian-speaking residents consume Russian state media, which can influence perceptions.
The city of Narva, bordering Ivangorod in Russia, is home to a majority of Russian-speaking Estonians. Many shop signs, advertisements, and other materials are visible in Russian in public.
A shop offering „doors“, sign in Russian, Photo: Dietmar Pichler 2018
At the same time, some members of the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia are part of the Estonian Defence League, a volunteer organization aiming to defend Estonia from a possible Russian attack.
Whatever the goal of the so-called Narva People’s Republic campaign is, whether it is satire meant to remind us how eager the Russians are to destabilize or a psyop by the Kremlin to intimidate, one is well advised neither to spread panic nor to completely ignore that there could be a broader threat of destabilization. Being prepared is not a bad thing.
In 2014, Russia infiltrated the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in Ukraine with intelligence officers and mercenaries and intensified a long-time disinformation campaign until it turned into a real local war, including Russian weapons, soldiers “on vacation,” and artillery fire from Russian territory.
Russian intelligence officer and warlord Igor Girkin from Moscow became “Minister of Defence” of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic. His colleague Alexander Borodai, also from Moscow, became prime minister and is now a Duma deputy for Putin’s United Russia (Yedinaya Rossiya) party.
There are two figures worth mentioning in this context, not because of their relevance, but because of their irrelevance before Russia started to destabilize Ukraine in 2014: Denis Pushilin and Pavel Gubarev. Pushilin, a finance fraudster, a minor criminal, and an unsuccessful politician, received only 0.08 percent of the vote in the 2012 elections, not even 0.1 percent. Gubarev, on the other hand, had connections to pro-Russian, Marxist, anti-European groups such as the Progressive Socialist Party and to the Russian neo-Nazi organization Russian National Unity (RNE).
Both were neither successful politicians nor did they in any way represent public opinion in the regions occupied since 2014. Polls showed that even despite heavy Russian propaganda and manipulation, there was never a clear majority supporting separatism.
What history shows with Pushilin and Gubarev is that completely irrelevant fringe radicals can become “leaders” when the Kremlin decides that local puppets are needed.
Unfortunately, Western media often did a poor job reporting the actual events and dynamics in 2014, and Russian propaganda had an easy time adding confusion. I myself was in several regions of Ukraine in 2014 and was able to speak with people from the region and see how low the support for these so-called “separatist republics” actually was compared to what was often shown in the media.
The false assumption that someone who does not agree with the government in Kyiv in 2014 is automatically a “pro-Russian separatist” is a trap we should not fall into again, especially when we speak about Estonia and Latvia.
No need for panic, but it is good to keep both eyes open and be prepared. 2014 should not be repeated.
- „A Guide To The Separatists Of Eastern Ukraine“, RFE, 2014
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-separatists-whos-who/25408875.html - Russia’s Involvement in the Tallinn Disturbances
A Compact Overview Compiled by the ICDS, 2007
https://icds.ee/en/russias-involvement-in-the-tallinn-disturbances/
Dietmar Pichler ist Chief Analyst und Redakteur bei INVED und verfügt über umfassende Expertise in den Bereichen Desinformation, Medienkompetenz und ausländische Einflussnahme. Er analysiert Desinformationskampagnen sowie propagandistische Einflussstrategien autoritärer Regime. Neben seiner Tätigkeit bei INVED ist er als freiberuflicher Medienkompetenztrainer, Berater für strategische Kommunikation und Desinformationsanalyst in Wien tätig. Er ist Vizepräsident der NGO „Vienna Goes Europe“ und Gründer der Initiative „Disinfo Resilience Network“, die sich der Vernetzung von Fachleuten zur Aufdeckung und Einordnung hybrider Bedrohungen widmet.