An Estonian policeman detained by Russian security services has been charged with espionage in a case that has sent tensions soaring between Moscow and its small Nato-member neighbour. Tallinn has accused Moscow of abducting Eston Kohver at gunpoint from Estonian territory. He now faces up to two decades in jail.
The arrest of the Estonian national came just days after US President Barack Obama visited the former Soviet state last week to calm the nerves of Washington's Baltic allies over the Ukraine crisis. "Eston Kohver was charged on September 8 with espionage," his lawyer Nikolai Polozov told AFP on Thursday. "He faces up to 20 years in prison."
The controversial detention has alarmed people in the tiny country of Estonia, which was occupied by the Soviet Union for half a century before it broke free from the crumbling USSR in 1991. Along with fellow Baltic states the nation of 1.3 million joined the EU and Nato in 2004 as a bulwark against Russian influence.