Military experts: do not rule out Russian aggression against Estonia

Toomas Hõbemägi

Postimees asked military experts about the likelihood of Estonia becoming a military target of Russia and what it may require from Estonia.

One of Estonia’s biggest military experts Leo Kunnas said that the Russian military aggression against Estonia can never be ruled out.

“Russia’s military doctrine contains provisions which enable our neighbour to consider Estonia as its enemy,” says Kunnas, adding that Russia has a wide range of pretexts that it may use to invade Estonia. “For instance it may declare that it wants to protect the interests of Russians living in Estonia or say that Estonia is in its sphere of interests or attack Estonia for being a NATO country or claim that it wants to resolve territorial claims with Estonia.”

If Russia were to attack Estonia, it would take between 30 and 60 days before NATO can launch a counter-attack. Until then Estonian Defence Forces need to protect Tallinn and other key centres.

“The worst thing is that NATO does not an operative plan to defend the Baltic states and has never exercised defending us. At the same time Russia is constantly carrying out military exercises where it deploys its forces outside its borders,” says Kunnas.

To make matters worse, NATO can reach Estonia only from the South from the direction of Lithuania and Latvia which means that Estonia needs to ensure that this direction remains open for NATO forces.

“I believe in God, but no-one else will defend our country for us,” said Kunnas.

Sursa: BalticTimesNews