The Plague of Putin: Our chilling dispatch from a small town in Estonia where residents speak of World War Three and the hundreds of Russian tanks which could invade them at any given time

[Sanguine]

By Special Report From Ian Birrell In Estonia For The Mail On Sunday

Published: 17:04 EST, 29 October 2016 | Updated: 20:17 EST, 29 October 2016

As heavy rain gushed down from glowering skies and cars snaked through heavily fortified customs points, it was impossible to ignore echoes of the last time the world was locked in a Cold War.

For beside me in the gloom of a grisly Baltic afternoon was a bridge that stands on the front line of frightening global tensions that have flared up between Russia and the West.

It is called Friendship Bridge – yet this route over the Narva river between Russia and Estonia is now ringed with steel and bristles with security cameras. At either end of the bridge stand medieval castles flying rival national flags – reminders of this region's troubled past.

President Vladimir Putin (pictured) has already seized a slice of Ukraine and carpet-bombed an ancient city in Syria

It takes barely two minutes to cross on foot – and would take just seconds in one of the hundreds of tanks in a Russian armoured division stationed nearby.

Barely 100 miles to the north lies St Petersburg – the stunning city that symbolised Tsarist expansion. This was the power base of President Vladimir Putin, the ex-Soviet spy chief, whose plague of aggression in Europe and the Middle East is causing such international concern.

A similar distance west lies the Tapa army base, where 800 British troops with drones and heavy weapons will be deployed next year to demonstrate Nato's determination to protect Baltic states from the snarling Russian bear.

Other Nato nations are also sending troops as part of the biggest military build-up on Russia's borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the last Cold War. Moscow has moved nuclear-capable missiles into its Kaliningrad outpost between Lithuania and Poland.

Dimitry, 39, a businessman from St Petersburg, spent several hours queuing at the bridge to reach his weekend flat in Estonia. 'Each time I cross here, I think it may be the last,' he said. 'Suddenly things are different and people are talking of World War Three...

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