Estonia–Russia border

The Tartu line

The Treaty of Tartu, signed on 2 February 1920, ended Estonia’s War of Independence. Soviet Russia recognised Estonia’s independence in perpetuity, and the treaty set its eastern border, putting Petseri County and the municipalities beyond Narva inside Estonia. Ratifications were exchanged in Moscow on 30 March 1920. That border stood until 1944.^[1]

“for ever all rights of sovereignty formerly held by Russia over the Esthonian people and territory”^[1]

Moved in 1944–45

After the Soviet Union annexed Estonia in 1940, it treated the boundary as an internal line. In August 1944 it gave about 75% of the Pechory (Petseri) area, 1,251 km², to Pskov Oblast, and in January 1945 the municipalities east of Narva, 375 km² including Ivangorod, to Leningrad Oblast.^[2]

The area east of Narva had mostly Russian inhabitants. In the Pechory region Russians were also a majority before the war, but about a third of the people were Estonian. The border now splits the lands of the Seto people, some of whom cannot visit their ancestors’ graves on the other side.^[2]

An unratified treaty

When Estonia regained independence in 1991, it held that the Tartu border was still valid. In 1993 Russia’s State Duma passed a law making the Soviet-era line the state border.^[2] Estonia’s constitution says its land border is determined by the Treaty of Tartu and by other international border agreements.^[2]

In 1995 Estonia accepted a “technical” treaty based on the Soviet-era line, slightly straightened on land in the south, and the two foreign ministers approved its final draft at Petrozavodsk in November 1995. Estonia’s parliament ratified a treaty in June 2005, but Russia objected to its preamble and never ratified it.^[2] A new version, signed by foreign ministers Urmas Paet and Sergey Lavrov in February 2014, added a paragraph affirming that Estonia has no territorial claims. As of 2020 it had not been ratified by either side.^[2]

Buoys on the Narva

In the Narva River the line follows the fairway, which moves as the riverbed shifts, so Estonia sets out buoys in the navigation season to stop boats from straying across. Early on 23 May 2024, Russian border guards removed 25 of them, without explanation, and never returned them.^[3]

Russia refused a joint survey of the riverbed to fix the fairway, and on 30 May 2025 Estonia’s foreign ministry ended the talks as futile and said no new buoys would go in that summer.^[3]