and cut the supply lines their ground forces would depend on in Estonia. I don’t have enough ground-based air now to execute those missions and”—the admiral emphasized—“check the naval forces Putin is collecting in the Baltic. Sir, I need the Navy.”
“Ok,” said the president. “I’ll talk with General Zrebiec here about getting some more ships up there.” The chairman made a note on his yellow pad.
“Sir.” The admiral’s helicopter’s engines were still warm when he climbed back aboard it on the White House South Lawn. Krone was airborne for Estonia two hours after landing at Andrews.
One hour into SACEUR’s eastbound flight, as the C-37A flew over Cape Cod, heading northeast toward the open Atlantic, a pair of Russian multipurpose Sukhoi T-50s lifted off from Pskov and met up with an Ilyushin Il-78 tanker over central Estonia. The summer solstice had occurred a week earlier. At 59+ degrees latitude the northern horizon stayed a blue-gold hue from sunset to dawn. All three planes flew through the quasi-night with their transponders off.
The crews of two C-17 USAF transport planes rising up from Amari on a return flight to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware were settling in for the nine-hour haul back home. Besides the C-17, the traffic controllers at Amari were also monitoring an inbound flight of American F-35s from Frankfurt. The controllers directed the in- and outbound flights safely past one another.
But air traffic control did not know that the Russian stealth tactical fighters were in the vicinity. Both the American and Russian planes were equipped with stealth technology. The F-35 and Sukhoi pilots finally saw one another at an approach speed of Mach 1.89 when they were less than a mile apart. All four pilots turned on their targeting radars and jinked to avoid collision. The evasive action saved one American and one Russian plane. The other two were less fortunate. Their wings brushed each other, severely damaging both aircraft and rendering them uncontrollable. The Russian pilot’s ejection seat failed. He died when his plane crashed. The American was luckier. He parachuted safely, walked away out of the potato field where he’d landed, and hitchhiked to the nearest village.
Russian national security advisor Dmitri Bogdanov awakened Putin at 0400, a half-hour after the sun rose in Moscow. He told the Russian president that a Russian fighter had been downed over Estonia; that the NATO planes had their targeting radars on when the Sukhoi went down; and that the Russian pilot was presumed to have been killed. The second Russian pilot had returned to his base unharmed and was still being debriefed. Bogdanov could not answer whether the Russian plane had been shot down. Putin didn’t care.
He dressed and strolled to the presidential briefing room in the Kremlin, thinking. The surviving Russian pilot had seen his wingman’s plane on fire after the collision and had told briefers that the American pilots had “painted” the Russian jets, that is, turned on their targeting radars. He described how the Russian and American planes had had visual contact prior to the incident. He did not know that his wingman’s plane had collided with the F-35. Putin called for his chief of staff, defense minister, and intelligence head.
Admiral Krone received word of the incident aboard his flight to Estonia. On arrival at Amari, he was driven to his command center, where the reports started to come in. So did the two American pilots who had survived the encounter. Krone ordered an uptick in NATO’s defense readiness condition and sent a draft press release to the Pentagon.
Two NATO F-35s piloted by United States Air Force officers encountered two Russian Sukhoi T-50 fighters over Estonian airspace at approximately 0315 local time this morning. The Russian fighters were overflying a NATO member’s airspace without Estonian approval with their transponders turned off. The NATO pilots were on a standard patrol mission. They and the Russian pilots became aware of each other visually at a distance of less than one mile. They took action to avoid collision. One NATO and one Russian plane avoided each other. The other Russian fighter’s wing collided with the F-35’s wing. Both planes were seriously damaged. The U.S. pilot ejected. He is safe. There is no evidence that the Russian pilot ejected. NATO investigators have located the site of the crash and are making every effort to find the missing pilot. There are no reports of ground fatalities or injuries related to the collision.
After Washington approved the draft, it was sent for information purposes to the NATO ambassadors of all the alliance members. The statement was issued to the media at noon local time in Tallinn.
Before NATO’s first public comment, Putin had gone on state-run television to accuse NATO of “provoking Russia.” He angrily denounced NATO for targeting the Russian planes with their radar, which he said was proof of “hostile intent.” “Ethnic Russians who live in the Baltic States,” said Putin, fixing his hooded eyes on the camera, “have been the subjects of repression and aggression by the governments of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Now, NATO has joined these criminal states.”
The accusation was Putin’s idea. His meeting with Defense Minister Vissarionovich and Intelligence Chief Ulyanov yielded another. Russia initiated bot attacks—Web robots that transformed selected Estonian computers into virtual zombies. The attacks allowed Moscow to control the little Baltic state’s interior ministry’s command and control center. From this center in Tallinn went orders to local police around the country to start rounding up leaders of the ethnic Russian business and civic communities. Once in police custody, they were to be interrogated about subversive activities.
Other bot attacks targeted the Estonian prime minister and his defense, foreign, interior, and finance ministers, as well as their deputies, who learned that their bank accounts, equity, and bond holdings had been either zeroed or reduced by 75 percent.
The alarming reports of personal financial ruin distracted the government’s chief ministers from the arrest of ethnic Russians in Tallinn, Tartu, Narva, and the country’s other population centers, large and small. The government learned of them when the Russian state media broadcast Vladimir Putin’s stormy declaration that “I will not stand by and allow ethnic Russians to be treated like dogs.” By the time of Putin’s broadcast, the Estonian government had already stopped the roundup. Its prime minister went on national television and explained the cyber attack. For naught.
At dawn the following day, Tuesday, July 1, the Kremlin issued the warning order that confirmed military objectives and command relationships prior to combat operations. Russian tanks and mechanized units that had been training for six months made their final preparations. So did the infantry and helicopter gunship units that would assist in capturing airfields at towns west of the border with Russia.
Estonia is a small, low-lying country dotted with marshland and lakes. Unlike central Germany, it lacks an abundance of broad plains suited to large-scale armored battles. Estonia has no easy invasion routes from Russia. The center of the dividing line between the two states runs down the middle of Lake Peipus. Through the long lake’s vertical axis passes about 120 kilometers of the 294-kilometer-long border. Lake Peipus empties into the Baltic Sea through the north-flowing Narva River.
Russian forces went into action at 0300 on July 2. They established bridgeheads along the Narva River and began rolling west to encircle Narva, Estonia’s third-largest city.
The invasion route was well trodden. Russia’s military under Peter the Great had used it twice at the beginning of the eighteenth century. More recently—in the first half of 1944—Soviet General Leonid Govorov, commanding the Leningrad Front, drove west with the immediate object of seizing Estonia from Nazi control. The three armies under his command invaded across the Narva River. This time, the field commander of Russian forces would be a veteran of the 2014 invasion of Crimea, General Alexander Lentsov.
President Algodón had spoken with the other NATO member chiefs of state. He persuaded them that, as Putin had not stopped in Ukraine or Moldova, he would not stop if he could swallow the Baltic States. He reminded them of what
