It is good to be here again, and I am very glad that we got to talk about the upcoming Washington Summit.
In Washington, we must make bold decisions that will strengthen the security of our people and the Euro-Atlantic area in the long term. This means:
First, ensuring support to Ukraine. Our defence and deterrence begin in Ukraine. The price we pay in supporting Ukraine in its efforts to defeat Russian imperialism is little compared to what would follow if aggression paid off. We have to set victory as a goal. Professor Timothy Snyder has rightly said that you don’t always win wars, but you never win unless you set victory as the goal.
The outcome of this fight is existential for the security of the whole transatlantic community. For this, we need an allied pledge of long-term support for Ukraine. Estonia is spending 0.25% of our GDP on military assistance to Ukraine over the next four years. If all allies did the same, that would provide enough military assistance to Ukraine to win the war.
All the elements of the Summit’s Ukraine package should also be seen as stepped-up support to Ukraine on its membership path. The key lesson we learned from recent decades is that grey zones of security are sources of conflict. Our duty is to continue this process. We must demonstrate through our words and actions that Ukraine's path to NATO is irreversible.
Second, we need to keep the Russian threat at the centre of NATO’s focus. A long-term strategy to counter and contain Russia’s aggressive actions is needed.
We are also seeing a coordinated policy of hybrid activities by Russia across Europe. There are more and more attempts to destroy civilian infrastructure and sabotage facilities related to arms deliveries. As part of our reaction, we need to connect the dots – these are not isolated events, but parts of the bigger picture. This means having a shared understanding of the threat and we need to expose these activities in public.
Third, NATO’s new defence plans must be exercised, backed up by real forces and capabilities. For this, all Allies need to invest more in defence. As we discussed today, it is very good that in 2024 23 will reach 2% target. We also need to focus on delivering the key capabilities in the short term. This year, Estonia is spending 3.4% of our GDP on defence and this needs to be done by other allies as well.
This spring Estonia celebrated 20 years of joining NATO. And NATO is celebrating 75 years since its creation. Today, NATO is still history’s most successful defence alliance. In this year of anniversaries, the biggest gift would be decisions that we live up to the new security reality.
Thank you!
