{"id":248476,"date":"2022-01-18T08:31:58","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T08:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=248476"},"modified":"2022-01-19T12:20:18","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T12:20:18","slug":"estonian-president-calls-for-more-nato-troops-to-defend-against-russia-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=248476","title":{"rendered":"Estonian president calls for more NATO troops to defend against Russia threat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Samuel Stolton \u2013 Politico Jan 13, 2021<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Estonia\u2019s president has called for an increase in NATO troop numbers in the country, amid heightened Russian aggression on Europe\u2019s eastern flank.<\/p>\n

Speaking to POLITICO following talks with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday, President Alar Karis said that Vladimir Putin\u2019s deployment of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border is a cause for concern and that NATO should waste no time in upping its defenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want more NATO troops in Estonia,\u201d Karis said, adding that he welcomed a recent decision by Denmark to increase its military presence in Lithuania, with fighters being deployed this month under the NATO banner.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a strong presence to make sure we are not going to be attacked,\u201d he said, \u201conly for defense purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

When pressed on the likelihood of Moscow invading Estonia, Karis struck a cautious tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know. If you look back at history there are surprises,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery time a situation like this emerges \u2014 like now in Ukraine \u2014 questions like this come up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Estonian president also confirmed that a high-level trip to Ukraine has been penciled in for March, but that he currently has no plans to sit down with Putin. His predecessor Kersti Kaljulaid was criticized by Baltic partners for holding talks with the Russian leader in Moscow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe state of relations [with Russia] at the moment is frozen,\u201d Karis said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just Estonia but the whole of Europe. The first step is through NATO, to start some sort of a discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea in 2014, NATO personnel were deployed to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, as well as Poland, with each country hosting around 1,000 troops.<\/p>\n

Moscow has demanded that NATO reduce its presence across Europe\u2019s eastern borders and wants guarantees that Ukraine and Georgia will never join the alliance.<\/p>\n

Stoltenberg said Wednesday that should Putin embark on an invasion of Ukraine, then NATO won\u2019t hesitate to bolster its defenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Russia once again uses force against Ukraine and further invades Ukraine, then we have to seriously look into the need to further increase our presence in the eastern part of the alliance,\u201d Stoltenberg said.<\/p>\n

NATO defense ministers are set to review tensions with Russia in a meeting planned for mid-February.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Estonian president\u2019s call for more NATO troops follows a recent increase in the number of Danish troops deployed in nearby Lithuania<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":242513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=248476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248477,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248476\/revisions\/248477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/242513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=248476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=248476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=248476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}