Russia’s Vladimir Putin is preparing to send hundreds of thousands of former soldiers to cause chaos across Europe after any ceasefire with Ukraine is signed, Estonia’s foreign minister has warned. Margus Tsahkna has claimed that the Kremlin is planning to dispatch “ex-prisoners and rapists” to wage a hybrid war in the European Union.

In response to the potential threat, Mr Tsahkna proposed a blanket ban on Russian soldiers who fought in Ukraine from the Schengen free-travel zone, while also inviting the UK to join the scheme to boost collaboration in order to prepare the continent for what could be “very, very sudden security risk for Europe” after a potential peace deal is reached. “Russia and Putin are already using different people to commit attacks on our societies, but when there will be peace, we can imagine that we will have hundreds of thousands of ex-combatants coming to Europe,” he told The Telegraph.

He warned that these individuals are “definitely not going with good plans to earn their own salaries and pay taxes. They come with real bad plans. We already see the special agencies of Russia organising different attacks in Europe.”

Earlier this month, Estonia imposed a ban on 261 ex-combatants entering the EU’s external borders amid fears that criminal offences were being committed by former service personnel. “Up to 180,000 convicted prisoners were recruited directly from Russian penal colonies into special military units,” Estonian intelligence claimed in its document. “Many returnees have already committed serious crimes. The total number of which has reached a 15-year high in Russia in the first of 2025, and this upsurge is likely linked to the mass return of ex-combatants.”

The prevailing view among Estonian leadership, including Prime Minister Kristen Michal and foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, is that a ceasefire or even a pause in Ukraine would not signal a Russian retreat. Instead, it would allow Putin to reconstitute his conventional forces while doubling down on tactics to destabilise the West.

Following incidents such as the damage to Baltic undersea cables and GPS jamming, there is a fear that a pause in Ukraine would free up Russian special forces and GRU operatives to target European energy grids, data pipelines and logistics hubs more aggressively.

Meanwhile, with major elections in Europe set to take place throughout 2026, the Kremlin is also predicted to use AI-driven disinformation to support populist or pro-Russian factions, aiming to fracture the unity that has sustained Ukraine.

Estonia is connected to the rest of NATO only by the Suwalki Gap – a 60-mile strip of land between Poland and Lithuania. If Russia were to seize this corridor from its ally Belarus or its exclave Kaliningrad, Estonia and the other Baltic states would be physically cut off from land-based reinforcements.

Tallinn estimates that once the high-intensity fighting in Ukraine pauses or ends, Russia will only need three to five years to rebuild its forces to a level where they could challenge NATO’s eastern flank. The Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service (EFIS) considers the Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – to be the most vulnerable part of NATO and the likely target for renewed Russian aggression.

Despite significant losses, Russia is actively expanding its military, aiming to reach 1.5 million soldiers this year and reforming its army structure, including the formation of new divisions in the Leningrad and Moscow military districts.