"Our most critical task ahead of this winter is ensuring Ukraine receives urgently needed military aid. This means delivering on Estonia's aid commitments and ensuring the immediate implementation of the €90 billion Ukraine Support Loan," he added. Estonia continues to support Ukraine bilaterally with military assistance worth at least 0.25% of GDP annually.
Estonia also emphasized the need to continue discussions on leveraging frozen Russian assets to ensure more extensive and sustained support for Ukraine. In May of this year, the Riigikogu passed a law enabling the use of assets belonging to entities of the Russian Federation - frozen under international sanctions - to compensate for war damages caused to Ukraine.
The second key topic addressed was Russian sabotage operations across EU nations. "Russia has intensified dangerous provocations in Europe. We must respond to this by enforcing robust sanctions, including an EU-wide restriction on issuing tourist visas to citizens of the Russian Federation. We must remember that Russia’s provocations aim to undermine our collective support for Ukraine by sowing distrust in our societies and our relations with Allies and partners, while fueling fear of escalation. Our support for Ukraine remains steadfast," the Minister of Defence stated.
During today's meeting, Defence Ministers were also briefed on the European Defence Agency's (EDA) Annual Defence Readiness Report. While EU Member States' defence spending, capability development, and defence industrial capacity are growing rapidly, further cooperation is required to secure a sufficient volume of ready and deployable armed forces.
Photos from the EU Defence Ministers´ meeting.
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