The Russians started talking about systemic activities that we might define as hybrid attacks in 2013, after an article was published on the Gerassimov doctrine. By now, these actions have been provided the ideological-religious background of a religious war. Moscow said officially in March of this year that what is going on in Ukraine constitutes a religious undertaking the aim of which is to "destroy evil everywhere in the world."

The ultimate enemy in this war is the West, even though Moscow's soporific liturgy keeps going on about how the global center of gravity is shifting East, and how Europe will soon be little more than an insignificant backwater of global politics. It is not good when people fall for this and start repeating the narrative like parrots, which is undoubtedly part of the Kremlin's package of active measures. It is even worse if the result is preparing for war with China, with European topics forced to take a back seat.

The relationship between Russia and China has been described, rather strikingly, as the "friendship of a rabbit and a boa." The only thing Russia has coming from the east is the status of vassal, or rather a kholop, and the Kremlin's only chance of gaining anything is from the West. That is where the increasingly impoverished Russians can look forward to delicious mouthfuls the diligent people in the West have been preparing for them. Being wealthy and weak at the same time makes one an ideal target for robbers.

Western analysts agree that for as long as Putin stays in power in Russia, there will be war.

While this is likely, we must keep in mind that Russia's religious war has been raging since at least the days of Muscovy. And a religious war, according to the definition in the West, is not "the continuation of policy by other means" but rather an eschatological struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, survival and death.

The West, especially its left-liberal camp, used to go to great lengths not to notice the point of contact between Islamic terror and religion, while it's as if there are now attempts to repeat this mental mistake in the case of Russia.

After the end of the Cold War, the West also tended to think a religious war was no longer possible in the 21st century.

Unfortunately, the West was mistaken and current events prove that it is possible, whereas the Muslim and Russian understandings of the world and war seem to coincide to a considerable degree. Both are convinced at a religious level that the West owes them for injustices of previous centuries, with reparations in store sooner or later, as well as that their claim has been given a divine blessing.

We need to look for the reasons in the past. We know that the Russian duchies fell victim to the Mongol-Tatar yoke before becoming a centralized power. This occupation lasted for two and a half centuries, from about 1237 to 1480, whereas the most interesting aspect is that the transition from the yoke to imperial Muscovy happened smoothly. Russian rulers had been eager to serve the conquerors as kholops and ask the khans for yarlyks, and the shift from the Golden Horde to centralized Russia saw the rulers' principles of governance and customs adopted.

Russian histories paint the Mongol-Tatar conquerers as pagans who did not care about local religious sentiment, meaning that the souls of Russians were untainted by the occupiers. Alas, this is yet another example of an important topic being misrepresented.

Islam became the official religion of the Golden Horde in 1312, even though the Tatars had converted back in 889. These circumstances also determined the Golden Horde's treatment of conquered peoples. They were necessary as obedient taxpayers and war slaves whose mass conversion was consciously avoided. According to Muhammad's teachings, all Muslims are equals, and one Muslim must not enslave another.

Muscovy adopted a lot of principles of statehood after the end of the Mongol-Tatar yoke in 1480 as it saw them as effective mobilization tools. The obligation of waging a religious war or jihad, meant to ensure the continued expansion of territories under Allah's power, was one of them.

Military religious war has two main forms: border warfare to keep the enemy scared and insecure, and conquest, aimed at laying down Allah's law in a given territory for good. The final goal is Allah's power over the entire world, with the war of conquest paused only temporarily for the purpose of gathering strength.

If we replace Islam with Russian Orthodox Christianity, jihad with the Bolsheviks' earlier class warfare and the Russian Orthodox Church's call for a "holy war," Dar al-Islam with the "Russian world" and Ummah with the concepts of "smaller and greater Russia."

Therefore, if we understand the kind of enemy Russia has been, we cannot only treat with national security and defense in military terms.

We must be prepared at all levels to eventually fight this enemy in the name of our suvival. Yes, we need to fulfill our NATO obligations of investing in [military] national defense, but that is no longer enough.

If necessary, we'll have to spend 10 percent of our budget on defense. We should also not make the mistake of seeing the enemy's hybrid warfare measures as relatively innocent trolling – it is a very serious topic. In the conditions of permanent hybrid war, one needs to be ready to fend off attacks in walks of life where the military is all but useless.

This is demonstrated vividly by what happened in Ukraine (Crimea) in 2014, recent events on the Narva River or Russia's threat that it would be unilaterally revising its borders with two NATO members: Finland and Lithuania.

It would also pay to recall the Soviet Union's conduct in the 1920s and 30s when provocations on Estonia's eastern border were constant. Fishermen detained on Lake Peipus and later released, while some never returned. Shots fired at Estonian border guards for no apparent reason. The work of the Estonian embassy in Moscow makes for a whole other story, with employees' nerves always on edge due to constant surveillance and attempts to pick fights.

Today, we know that all of it was in preparation for the conquest of Estonia in the name of the world revolution, which finally happened in 1940.

Coming back to the present, it would be mistaken to believe that the masters of the Kremlin (the collective Putin) are not fearful for their lives, which they are trying to hide using high-sounding propaganda and slogans.

Why else spend years upon years stealing billions from dear "mother Russia," buy yachts and villas in the "corrupt West" and send their kids off to the world's finest private schools and universities? The louder the accusations and threats coming from the eastern shore of Lake Peipus and the more absurd the nature of the provocations – it is all a manifestation of panic for the future.

Moscow knows full well that Russia cannot win in a direct military confrontation with the West, and the only way to win with an inferior hand is to bluff. The crazier the bluff, the better, as the religious war must go on until the last ounce of energy has been expended. These are the motives and choices of Putin and his close circle.

We should not repeat the mistake we made during our previous independent period. The Estonian army and its fighting capabilities were just fine. The problem was failure to use those resources at a critical time. We can see today that the Soviet Union achieved this so-called silent surrender by engaging in what we would today call hybrid warfare and isolating us from our potential allies and peers.

By betting solely on military readiness and constantly fearing an escalation, 1940 might come to pass again if the circumstances are unfavorable. To avoid that, we need to see national security as a system of measures and develop the ability to see through our enemy's eyes who is constantly probing for where our defenses are weakest and will not hesitate when it considers it necessary to strike.

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