The Estonian Prime Minister has said that there is a “hot war going on in Europe” and warned that “still” not everyone is “taking it seriously.”
Kaja Kallas has said that Western leader “shouldn’t be afraid” of standing up to Vladimir Putin as “defence is not escalation.”
Speaking with Sky News Kallas said, “Russia is saying this or that step is escalation, but defence is not escalation. I’m saying we should have all options on the table. What more can we do to help Ukraine win?”
The French President Emmanuell Macron has said that Russia is the “sole aggressor,” adding, “We are not at war with the Russian people. We just don’t want to let them win.”
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Macron said that there is “no consensus” to send Western troops to fight in Ukraine then said that “nothing should be excluded.”
The French President said, “There was no consensus today to send troops on to the ground in a manner that’s official, assumed and endorsed.
“But on the dynamic, nothing should be excluded. We will do everything so that Russia cannot win this war.”
“We should not exclude that there might be a need for security that then justifies some elements of deployment,” he added.
“But I’ve told you very clearly what France maintains as its position, which is a strategic ambiguity that I stand by.”
The Estonian Prime Minister said, “Russia wants to intimidate us. This is how they operate. They want to make me or Estonia afraid and to make us refrain from the decisions that we would otherwise make to be advocates for supporting Ukraine, the Western unity, everything that really annoys them a great deal.
“But I think the response to it is that we shouldn’t be afraid, and we shouldn’t refrain from the decisions that we would otherwise make, because this is how terrorists operate. They want us to be afraid. And the only response is that we are not afraid. We act on what is right.”
Kallas said that Donald Trump criticising NATO GDP spending is “fair critique” and she has suggested that all alliance members must do their share.
“What the aggressor or autocrats are provoked by is weakness. So, you take up the war if you think you can win and… only when you think you are stronger.
“So, if we give out signals that we are not doing enough for our defence, we are not taking this seriously enough, it might provoke the aggressor to take a further step. And that’s why I have advocated for investing more than [the NATO target] 2% of our GDP to defence.
“Estonia is doing 3.2% of our GDP, but not all the countries are doing so. I was really surprised, I thought that when the war started in Ukraine two years ago, it would have been a wake-up call to all the European countries to do more, to spend more on defence, [but] in 2023, it was 11 countries that spent over 2%. And I don’t really understand why.”
She said it would never have happened during the Cold War.
“In 1988, all the NATO countries spent more than 2% because the threat was real. There was a Cold War. Now there’s a hot war going on in Europe. And still, not everybody is taking it seriously enough.”
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