Lake Peipus, the fifth-largest lake in Europe, is located on Estonia's eastern border with Russia. The control line runs through the middle of the body of water.

The exercise took place on the Russian side of the border on Thursday, July 9, and the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) said no advance warning was given.

Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur (Reform) told Postimees newspaper that this is the first time such exercises have taken place on the lake.

"This is certainly not routine. Russia has not previously conducted weapons exercises on Lake Peipus. In that sense, this is something new" he said on Monday evening.

"The Russian forces were probably given the task of practicing shooting down naval drones," he told Delfi.

The minister explained the situation in more detail to Postimees: "hey were firing at a moving target on the water. Whether weather conditions prevented them from doing this in the Gulf of Finland or for some other reason they chose Lake Peipus, or whether the units behind Piirissaar Island were assigned such a task. Previously, the Russian Border Guard has not carried out this kind of exercise," he said.

The minister said Estonia knows which agency or unit organized the exercise, but did not share the information with the media.

Interior Minister Igor Taro (Eesti 200) told Postimees any exercises near the border are provocative in nature, and clear rules exist about how to behave in the area.

"Generally, military personnel do not simply show up near the border to conduct an exercise for no particular reason," he said.

However, Taro said that not every incident taking place across the border should receive too much attention.

"A lot of different things happen across the border. You could write about something every day. Should we get worked up about everything? As far as I know, the general situation is such that we should not worry about all kinds of speculation that has appeared in the foreign media about our region. We have no reason to worry. However, we do have reason to pay attention to what is happening there. Something is constantly being tested or tried. We record every incident, take note of it and draw our own conclusions," he told ERR News.

Border guard monitoring situation

Pevkur said the PPA had monitored the situation. He did not disclose how close the troops were to the Estonian border.

The defense minister told Delfi he did not agree that this was yet another Russian provocation: "Rather, this is a case of disarray within the Russian power structures."

The PPA said the Russian side did not notify Estonia in advance of the live-fire exercise on Lake Peipus, but the authorities were aware of what was happening.

Tauno Tammik, acting head of the border guard bureau at the South Prefecture, told Delfi: "The Russian side has previously conducted various exercises and live-fire drills on the land border in the immediate vicinity of the temporary control line, the sounds of which can be heard on this side."

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