Baltic Nations

About Baltic Nations:

• The Baltic nations, often collectively referred to as the "Baltic States," are a group of three countries in Northern Europe located along the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea.
• They are Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
• They are bounded on the west and north by the Baltic Sea, on the east by Russia, on the southeast by Belarus, and on the southwest by Poland and an exclave of Russia. 
• Capitals: Tallinn (Estonia), Riga (Latvia) and Vilnius (Lithuania).
• Languages: Spoken languages are Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian. In Estonia and Latvia, about one-quarter of the population are ethnic Russians.
• Independence: They gained their independence first from the Russian Empire at the end of World War I in 1918 and later from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
• The Baltic States have been members of the European Union (EU) since 2004.

Who are the Wagner Group of mercenaries?

• The Wagner Group, also known as PMC Wagner, is a Russian paramilitary organisation.
• Origin: The group is believed to have been founded in 2014 by a Russian veteran of the Chechen war who so admired Hitler he named the group after Richard Wagner, the führer's favourite composer.
• The skull is the symbol of the Wagner Group.
• The organisation first came to the world's attention in 2014, fighting alongside Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
• The organisation has also been active across Africa in recent years — Libya, Sudan, Mozambique, Mali and the Central African Republic.
• Today, there are thought to be some 10,000 Wagner Group members.
• The U.S. government has called Wagner a "proxy force" of Russia's defence ministry.