On 12 June 1940 , according to the director of the Russian State Archive of the Naval Department Pavel Petrov ( C.Phil . ) , the order for total military blockade of Estonia was given to the Soviet Baltic Fleet . On 14 June , the Soviet military blockade of Estonia went into effect while the world 's attention was focused on the fall of Paris to Nazi Germany . Two Soviet bombers downed a Finnish passenger airplane " Kaleva " flying from Tallinn to Helsinki carrying three diplomatic pouches from the U.S. legations in Tallinn , Riga and Helsinki . On 16 June , Soviet NKVD troops raided border posts in Estonia ( along with Lithuania and Latvia ) . Soviet leader Joseph Stalin claimed that the 1939 mutual assistance treaties had been violated , and gave six-hour ultimatums for new governments to be formed in each country , including lists of persons for cabinet posts provided by the Kremlin . The Estonian government decided , according to the Kellogg – Briand Pact , to not respond to the Soviet ultimatums by military means . Given the overwhelming Soviet force both on the borders and inside the country , the order was given not to resist in order to avoid bloodshed and open war
Kaleva
Kaleva (airplane)
Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic