Anonymous social media accounts are calling for the secession of an Estonian county on Russia’s border. Tallinn says it’s Moscow’s doing.

In conversations about a hypothetical Russian invasion of NATO territory, analysts frequently discuss the city of Narva, Estonia, as a possible target. Narva sits directly on the Estonian-Russian border, and 85 percent of its population is ethnic Russian. This has raised fears among some observers that Moscow could stage an attack under the same pretext it used in Ukraine, claiming a need to “protect” Russian speakers from persecution. In March 2025, an Estonian anti-propaganda watchdog flagged a cluster of social media accounts promoting a so-called “Narva People’s Republic,” deliberately echoing the language Moscow used to legitimize its backing of the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The accounts have since drawn responses from Estonia’s prime minister, its intelligence services, and international media. But who is behind them — and what they actually want — remains murky. Here’s what we know.