Estonia's Spy Agency Blames Russia for August Arson at Ukraine Drone Supplier Milrem

Estonia's Internal Security Service, known as KAPO, said Tuesday it has concluded that an arson attack on a Tallinn facility used by Milrem Robotics was "a deliberate and pre-planned act commissioned by Russian security services." The agency called the attack "directly attributable to the Russian Federation."

A fire broke out overnight on August 15 at a Milrem building in Tallinn, according to Estonia's BNS news agency. It was contained quickly. Two Latvian suspects were detained in Latvia on August 17, a third followed the next day, and all three were handed over to Estonian authorities, according to the Associated Press. No trial date or formal charges have been announced in the sources reviewed here. The criminal investigation is ongoing.

Milrem makes THeMIS unmanned ground vehicles. Fifteen were operational in Ukraine as of a 2025 company statement cited by Breaking Defense, with more than 150 additional units headed to Kyiv under a Dutch-funded program. The company is majority owned by EDGE Group, an Emirati defense conglomerate. A Milrem spokesperson told Breaking Defense the arson caused no material disruption to operations or deliveries and declined to speculate on motive, saying that's for investigators to determine.

Estonia's response

Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna summoned Russia's chargé d'affaires, Kamran Abilov, calling the attack "an act of sabotage ordered by the special services of the Russian Federation" and part of "a broader campaign across Europe aimed at intimidating us and weakening our support for Ukraine." Prime Minister Kristen Michal wrote on X that Estonia's answer would be "stronger security at home, more support for Ukraine and greater pressure on Russia. We will not be intimidated."

KAPO said the Milrem attack's "modus operandi" matches other sabotage operations it links to Russia across Europe, and warned that defense contractors, especially drone makers and firms supporting Ukraine, remain targets. The agency is advising Estonian companies to review physical and cyber security.

Russia's denial

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the allegations "baseless, ill-considered, have absolutely no relation to reality, and lack any form of reasoning," telling reporters Moscow "cannot and will not take such statements seriously." After Abilov's meeting at the Estonian foreign ministry, the Russian embassy in Tallinn went further, saying Estonia provided no evidence of Moscow's involvement and accusing Tallinn of manufacturing "insinuations" to justify its own hostility toward Russia domestically.

KAPO's public statement leans heavily on an intelligence assessment and a pattern match to other incidents, not on disclosed forensic evidence tying the Latvian suspects to a Russian handler. Intelligence attribution of this kind is inherently hard to verify independently, and Western agencies rarely release the sourcing behind it, for understandable operational-security reasons. That doesn't make the accusation wrong. It does mean the public record right now is an assessment from an interested party, Estonia, made against a government it's already at odds with, Russia. Readers should treat it as exactly that until a court or independent body weighs in.

The bigger pattern

What gives Estonia's claim weight beyond this one incident is scale. The Associated Press has tracked roughly 200 incidents of sabotage and "malign activity" across Europe attributed to Russia since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, ranging from warehouse arson plots to cyberattacks on infrastructure. Germany blamed Russia for a drone-borne attempted attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport in early August. Poland is separately investigating a fire at a Starlink base station near Wola Krobowska that disrupted internet service reaching Ukraine, with Polish Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski saying "everything points to sabotage" consistent with Russian hybrid warfare, though Polish officials have not attributed that fire to Moscow with the certainty Estonia used on Milrem.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte praised Estonia for going public with the attribution, saying Russia "continues its reckless campaign of hostile actions against NATO allies" while "failing... on the battlefield in Ukraine." Lithuania's foreign minister, Kęstutis Budrys, said Russia's fingerprints were "all over" the attack. The EU called the arson "reckless" and reaffirmed support for Kyiv.

In a separate interview with Fox News Digital at the UN General Assembly, Tsahkna said Estonian intelligence sees no signs Russia is massing for a full-scale invasion of NATO territory, describing the Russian side of Estonia's border as comparatively "empty" versus a decade ago. That's a notable admission from Estonia's own top diplomat. He's not claiming Moscow is preparing tanks for the Baltics. He's arguing the real threat is this steady drip of sabotage, cyberattacks and GPS jamming designed to stay below the threshold that would trigger a NATO military response. Whether that distinction holds up, or whether hybrid attacks like Milrem eventually escalate into something NATO treats as an Article 5 trigger, remains an open question none of the parties involved have answered.

The unresolved piece is straightforward: the three Latvian suspects are in Estonian custody, but no charges, trial, or public evidence file has been released connecting them, or Moscow, to the fire. Estonia says that link is certain. Russia says it's invented. The investigation KAPO opened in August is still running.