Erna Raid

Due to the home advantage attributed to the intimate knowledge of the terrain by the local teams, changes to the competition were discussed in 2011.

[5][6] Estonian officials attribute this recent development to the ongoing campaign for the 2008 Russian presidential election.

[7] Russian officials claim that the commemoration of the Erna group today is part of alleged efforts by the Estonian authorities to glorify the Nazi past (other parts of it being the relocation of a memorial to Red Army invaders and an official greeting from the Minister of Defense to veterans of a unit of Estonians conscripted into a division organized within the Waffen SS to defend Estonia).

[5] An analyst of the US-based think tank Jamestown Foundation believes this view follows Soviet and post-Soviet Russia's official logic on two counts: first, that resistance to the Red Army was inherently illegitimate and conflatable with "fascism" in an occupied country or one targeted for occupation; second, that Estonia should be criticized for remembering an act of national resistance and its casualties.

[8] Estonia's Minister of Defense, Jaak Aaviksoo, called the accusations "regrettable" and recalled that the Erna group saved the lives of many civilians from the vengeful Soviet paramilitary units, and specifically pointed out cases of burning farmers alive along with their farms in Kutla.