Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur answered questions from a Reform.news correspondent on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels.
The Estonian defence minister said he was not impressed by the nuclear weapons deployment exercises that took place in Belarus in May.
“When it comes to exercises involving the use of nuclear weapons, it does not matter whether they take place in Belarus or somewhere in Siberia. Given where we are located, the only difference is the flight time. Clearly, this is a signal from their side. We sent our own signal today during the meeting of NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group.
But overall, there is nothing new here — Russia does this constantly. When they fail on the battlefield, they try to introduce a new topic into the agenda and begin threatening with nuclear weapons and launching the Oreshnik missile at Ukraine. They hope this will frighten us or break us. No. It will neither frighten nor break us,” Hanno Pevkur said.
The Estonian defence minister reaffirmed his country’s and NATO allies’ readiness to defend the airspace of the Baltic states and explained the difficulties involved in making decisions on intercepting various aerial objects.
“It is important to understand that there is a huge difference between how you act in wartime and how you act in peacetime. In a peaceful situation, the rules are very strict.
We must consider where we shoot something down, at what moment we do so, where it will fall, and what the collateral damage will be. NATO has sufficient capabilities to intercept virtually anything that could be used against us, but peacetime imposes serious restrictions,” the minister said.
The Estonian minister described Belarus as militarily dependent on Russia.
“The Belarusian leadership clearly states that it sees Russia as its sole security guarantor. Russia has its own military bases in Belarus, and we have no illusions. The reality today is that Russia faces no restrictions on operating from Belarusian territory. I do not want to speculate on whether Lukashenka could stop the hybrid attacks against the Baltic states and Poland, but I see that he is doing nothing to stop them,” he said.
Hanno Pevkur described the changes within NATO as moving in the right direction.
“There is a clear understanding that NATO is becoming stronger and will continue to grow stronger every day. Last year, we invested €90 billion more in our collective defence than in the previous year — considering only European countries and Canada, without the United States.
We are rapidly strengthening our defence industry and its capabilities. We understand that we are building an entirely new NATO — NATO 3.0 — an alliance that will possess real military capabilities for its own defence. This is definitely movement in the right direction,” the Estonian defence minister said.
