Minister: Estonia must learn from Ukraine's resilience

TALLINN – Estonia's minister of energy and the environment, Andres Sutt, who visited Kyiv with a business delegation on Monday, said that Estonia needs to learn from Ukraine's resilience.

"We will return to Estonia with valuable and necessary insights on the resilience of the energy infrastructure. But also on how to continue valuing environmental conservation in war and crisis conditions," the minister said according to spokespeople.

Sutt met in Kyiv with Ukraine's minister of environmental protection and natural resources, Svitlana Grynchuk, the deputy minister of energy, Mykola Kolisnyk, members of the Verkhovna Rada's environmental policy and nature conservation committee, and members of the Verkhovna Rada's energy committee.

The Estonian minister also read introductory remarks at a clean and green technology energy forum, attended by Estonian companies such as EcoBase Earth, Harju Elekter, Hepta Insights, KappaZeta, Skeleton Technologies, Skycorp Tech, Sunly, Zero Terrain, and Cleantech Estonia. At a side event, the ministry presented Estonia's activities in environmental protection to Ukrainian NGOs and brought them together with Estonian NGOs to foster cooperation.

Ukrainian officials expressed their continued gratitude to Estonia for support for Ukraine. Estonia's official contribution to Ukraine is one of the largest per capita globally, in addition to extensive voluntary aid that is not reflected in official statistics.

Discussions covered nature conservation in wartime and the direct and indirect damage caused by the war. For example, there are reports from the occupied territories of massive contamination of water and soil, which will affect Ukraine's environment and the quality of life of its people for decades and centuries after the war.

At the same time, new conservation challenges extend beyond the front lines. For example, it was highlighted that in addition to the war, there is a need to address the effects of climate change, including increasingly extreme weather conditions and droughts in key food-producing regions.

According to Sutt, Estonia can learn from Ukraine's experience in maintaining its energy infrastructure under difficult conditions.

"One of the key lessons Ukrainian experts point to is the need for decentralized energy production. Fortunately, Estonia is making progress in that direction," he said. In addition to solar and wind power, decentralized production also requires sufficient storage capacity.

Estonia has also supported Ukraine in the energy sector by supplying various spare parts for energy infrastructure.

One of the best ways to support Ukraine is to stop buying Russian fossil fuels, Sutt said.

"A third of Russia's state budget revenue comes from energy exports. Russia is therefore directly financing its war of aggression in Ukraine and the build-up of its military for a long-term confrontation with the West through fuel exports," he said.

Today, Russian gas accounts for about 13 percent of Europe's gas imports, compared to about 45 percent before the war. Estonia does not import energy from Russia, and the government supports sanctions on Russian energy. The REPowerEU roadmap, which gives the European Union a guideline on how to divest from Russian energy, is published on Tuesday.