It has been more than a century, but now the Baltic state of Estonia has its first explosives plant as an independent state again. Located at Ämari Air Base, which also houses NATO air defence jets, the company Nitrotol will start producing explosives, possibly including land mines. Nitrotol delivers to the Estonian Defence Forces and NATO countries. The plant was opened on 15 January 2026.
Estonia was occupied by first German and then Russian forces between June 1940 and August 1991. After that, domestic explosives’ production was banned by law. Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Baltic States and other NATO countries are rearming themselves to deter a Russian threat. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland see land mines as a necessary way of slowing down a possible invasion and have withdrawn from the international banning treaty on land mines.
Nitrotol has been making weaponry since 2019, for which it needed production in other countries to finish the products. The company is expected to open a second Estonian explosives’ production plant near Pärnu in 2027. | © 2026 Marcel Burger, nordicreporter.com. Featured photo: a US-made Claymore anti-personnel mine (Photo: Bill Morrow (CC))