Is Putin eyeing up the Baltic states?

For the frontline in a Cold War which has been rapidly heating up in recent years, Narva certainly does not look it. The small Estonian town on the border with Russia has a mainly ethnic Russian population, settled after the Soviet Union annexed Estonia at the end of the Second World War. However the closest (and potentially most lethal) thing to a Russian machine gun nest I could find is the 24 hour burger van next to the border post, complete with a suitably surly staff.

But is Narva’s ethnic Russian population a potential fifth column as tensions across the border with Nato increase? ‘The old babushkas in Narva are getting tired of being asked about it,’ Hannes Hanso, Estonia’s Defence Minister says in his offices in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn. ‘Every time I go abroad the question is always – is Narva next? The average pension in Narva is higher than the average wage in Ivangorod across the border.