some little points -
- When Est. goverment refused the permit for ´route recon´- to survey the seafloor one of major points was that the pipeline would go through a region on seafloor where in 1978(?) was a 7-magnitude earthquake . Seafloor AFAIK is filled with soft silt (here is a illustration - recently found russian ship ´Russalka´ , which went nose down to the bottom over 100 years ago - buried half-lenght into the silt
Google Image Result for http://www.tuuker.ee/pictures/Russalka.jpg ) .
- Sweden and Finland , who were actually the biggest proponents of pipeline 10 years ago are quietly trying to distance from it . Sweden has publicly been worried that service platform (to be situated near Gotland) could be used for surveillance of their waters , Finland AFAIK is seriously worried that construction work would mess up their undersea hydrophone network . And of course none of them likes the idea of Rus.Navy providing the security .
Finland especially is doing the right thing IMO - they know that in case of **** hitting the fan NOBODY but themselves is doing the fight for their home . So they are taking it really seriously .
- Russia has stated that it will build a new radar station on an island couple of miles from Est./Rus. border for air surveillance .
- Prob. the last drop for Est. was the creating of ´Gazprom Army ´ - quite heavily equipped (para-)military force that would be legally sanctioned to operate on foreign soil .
-As of Est. provoking the Bear too much - could be true . Hard to tell from the where i´m standing .
- OTOH Latvian goverment (which will step down during next week with 90% certainty ) is doing the exact opposite - keeping their mouth shut not to aggravate Russia in any way . There is going on huge internal political fight right now between the Rus.-influenced current utterly corrupt gov. and their opponents .
Great blog BTW.