One of the outreach initiatives by the Estonian government was setting up a Russian-speaking TV and Radio network called ETV+, run by the National Estonian broadcast network, ETV. Until 2015, the Russian-speaking population in Estonia received the news only from Russian news networks such as Russia One and other local Russian local networks whose transmission could be received in neighboring countries. These channels usually aired negative news about the EU and NATO. They sometimes took events out of context, portraying the Baltic countries and other EU countries as chaotic and unsuccessful.

Sergei Stepanov, a native of Narva who works in news production at ETV+, says the network has provided an alternative to Russian-based broadcast networks. But the young channel’s budget is still considered very modest when compared to that of channels like Russia One. But Stepanov sees that Narva has received tremendous attention since 2014, showing that the Estonians are trying to mitigate their negligence of the city and other towns in Eastern Estonia where the majority of the population speaks Russian and feels disenfranchised.

Many ethnic-Russians still feel quite disadvantaged despite the country’s efforts to reach out to the Russian community by offering free Estonian language courses to accelerate their integration in the country. Yuri Radionova, 41 and ethnic-Russian, says Russians feel that their status has declined ever since Estonia gained independence. Radionova, despite being an Estonian citizen, still feels unwelcome in the country that is trying to Estonize the country in every aspect to restore an identity that was marginalized for over half a century. But Radinova is one of many ehnic-Russian Estonian that feel discontent with the “Estonization” process that the nation has been undergoing since 1991.

But “Estonizing” Estonia seems more understandable when the history of the country and the small number of ethnic-Estonians who are left are taken into consideration. This has been the country’s only chance to bring back its identity, language, and culture that were oppressed for decades.

Officials from the EDL and the Estonian Defense Ministry, when asked if they feel that the status of the Russian minority in the country is worrisome, say the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia would not want to be involved in anything similar to what happened in Crimea in 2014 or Georgia in 2008.

Yet, this seeming trust never stopped the country from hosting hundreds of British and French soldiers at its military base in Tapa. Also, the country’s Ämari air base serves as one of the two main air bases used by NATO for the Baltic Air Policing Mission. This mission was initiated more than a decade ago to ensure constant surveillance of the Baltic airspace that would not allow the Russians to provide air cover for any attempt to march into these countries.