Russian media seized on an incident involving a soldier participating in a NATO military exercise on May 6, 2019, in the town of Sillamae, in northeastern Estonia.

Fifty-four news stories on Russian media and just three stories on Estonian media reported that a NATO soldier, grenade launcher in hand, climbed atop a monument commemorating fallen Soviet soldiers while the “Spring Storm” military exercises were underway. Though local police did not determine that the soldier had acted with malicious intent, pro-Kremlin media outlets framed his actions as a deliberate provocation.

The incident occurred close to Victory Day on May 9, a holiday celebrated by the “Russian World,” a Russian state-backed concept intended to foster camaraderie between Russia and its “compatriots abroad.” Sillamae is a former closed Soviet military town that the regime used as a nuclear weapons development site. The majority of the town’s inhabitants are ethnic Russian.

The coverage of the incident demonstrated how eager Kremlin media outlets are to portray NATO soldiers as disrespectful and Russophobic.

Verifying the Incident

Oleg Kultaev, a member of Sillamae’s municipal council, shared two images on Facebook showing a man in military uniform with a grenade launcher on top of the monument. The man was looking through binoculars, suggesting that he was using the monument as a convenient lookout point.