Estonian defmin in Brussels: Not wise to make negotiations easy for Putin

TALLINN - Estonian Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur emphasized at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels on Thursday that it is unwise to make negotiations easy for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ahead of the NATO summit in The Hague in June, the ministers discussed increasing allies' defense capabilities and defense spending to strengthen NATO's deterrence and defense, and a separate NATO-Ukraine Council meeting was also held.

"Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine has only one root cause -- Putin's ambition to restore the Russian empire. It was Putin's decision to attack Ukraine. Therefore, today's situation concerns not only Ukraine but all allies in NATO. Any negotiations will have clear consequences for Europe, which is why Europe must be at the negotiating table," Pevkur said.

"However, before we get there, it is necessary to give Ukraine a strong position on the front line, and it is certainly not necessary to give Russia an advance even before the negotiations have begun. For us, the strongest security guarantee for Ukraine continues to be membership in both the European Union and NATO, and Estonia will never recognize the shifting of borders by force," the minister added.

"From our perspective, the situation remains the same when it comes to increasing NATO's own defense capabilities -- we have been talking about the need to increase defense spending for years and have done so ourselves. Yesterday and today, we also received a clear message from the US -- the time to do this is now, because Europe must take more responsibility for Europe's security than before. By now, we have a clear framework in the form of both defense plans and capability development goals, which, on the one hand, also confirms the necessity of increasing defense spending and, on the other hand, also shows the extent of this need," Pevkur said.

On Thursday, the defense ministers also met with Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas within the framework of the NATO-Ukraine Council. In addition, the defense ministers signed several declarations of intent to initiate capability cooperation projects.