Estonia prepares to exhume Soviet soldiers

Estonia has made it’s border guards to tighten security checks and the Interior Ministry sent police reinforcements to the capital Wednesday. This country is awaiting for the unrest over the planned excavation of a Soviet war grave.

Estonia's center-right government has vowed to relocated the Soviet grave - which is believed to contain the remains of 14 soldiers - and a war memorial next to it. The Baltic state's ethnic Russians, however, have objected and have vowed to prevent the relocation.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Katrin Vides said border guards prevented nine people from crossing into Estonia from Latvia on suspicion that they might be connected to groups prepared to disrupt the excavation.

She said police from provincial areas had been brought to Tallinn in case additional security was needed.

Prime Minister Andrus Ansip told Radio 4 that the excavation would take approximately two weeks. He said the memorial at the site - a statue known as the Bronze Soldier - would be moved to a military cemetery but that the operation would require more than two weeks due to its size.

"The cemetery also needs to be prepared so that the Bronze Soldier may stand there eternally," he said.