Jägala Highway Strip

Military and political change. The Jägala Highway Strip was a Soviet military installation. Its purpose was tied directly to the Warsaw Pact's military doctrine. With the collapse of the USSR and the restoration of Estonian independence, the strategic need for a network of Soviet dispersal airfields on Estonian territory vanished. The newly independent Estonian Defence Forces had a different operational doctrine and lacked the resources or requirement to maintain it. The site reverted fully to its primary function as a public highway.

The site is a fully functional and integrated part of Estonia's public road network. It constitutes a long, straight section of the Jägala–Käravete highway (Tugimaantee 13). The physical characteristics of its former military purpose are still clearly visible: the roadway is significantly wider than a standard two-lane highway, and the large turning aprons at both the east and west ends remain intact. The strip is used daily for regular vehicular traffic. Due to its long, straight, and wide nature, it has also been known to be a location for illegal street racing and drifting events. It is maintained by the Estonian Transport Administration as a road, not as an aviation facility.

Jägala Highway Strip was a classic example of a Soviet-era dispersal airfield, known in Russian as 'Аэродромный Участок Дороги' (AUD, or Airfield Section of Road). Constructed in the 1980s, it was part of a dense, strategic network of reserve airfields built throughout the Warsaw Pact countries. Its purpose was to ensure the survivability and operational capability of the Soviet Air Force in a high-intensity conflict with NATO. If primary airbases (like the nearby Ämari or Tapa airfields) were destroyed in a first strike, tactical aircraft—such as Su-24 fighter-bombers, Su-25 ground-attack aircraft, and various MiG fighter variants—could be dispersed to these pre-prepared highway strips. The strip was a specially widened and reinforced section of the road, complete with concrete or asphalt turning pads (aprons) at each end, allowing aircraft to land, be rapidly refueled and re-armed by mobile crews, and take off for subsequent sorties. It was a purely military installation and never handled civilian operations.

There are no known plans or prospects for reopening the Jägala Highway Strip as an active aviation facility. The military strategy for which it was built is obsolete in the context of modern warfare and NATO doctrine. Reactivating the strip for aviation would be logistically complex, prohibitively expensive, and strategically unnecessary for the Estonian Defence Forces. Furthermore, its use as a key public road makes any permanent conversion to an airfield highly impractical. It will almost certainly remain a public highway, serving as a physical reminder of the Cold War era in Estonia.