Estonia’s foreign minister has said bloc members should be ready to put “boots on the ground” in Ukraine
An Estonian proposal to deploy NATO troops to Ukraine in the event that US President-elect Donald Trump brokers a peace deal is a de facto call for war with Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.
She was referring to remarks made by Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna earlier this week, in which he said the EU would have to step in and deploy troops if Washington refuses to pledge its military to Ukrainian defense.
Zakharova described Estonia and the other Baltic states as a “radical wing of the North Atlantic bloc” on Thursday, citing their provocative and belligerent rhetoric. Tsahkna’s latest statement “goads other members of the alliance into a doomed adventure” in Ukraine, she added.
The Estonian foreign minister told the Financial Times on Wednesday that European NATO members should deploy troops to Ukraine if the Trump administration brokers a peace deal that precludes Kiev from joining the US-led bloc.
”But without the US, it is impossible. And then we are talking about any form [of guarantee] in the meaning of boots on the ground,” Tsahkna explained.
He said it would be essential for France and Germany to be on board with the mission that he described, while non-EU ally Britain would have “the opportunity… to take the leadership.” He also urged other Western nations to follow Estonia by ramping up defense spending. Europeans may lack weapons stockpiles, but “what we do have is money. We have lots of money,” he claimed.
Members of this “radical wing,” Zakharova said, “probably cannot get it into their heads that the appearance of NATO contingents on Ukrainian territory will mean the alliance entering the war against our nation, as we have repeatedly told them.
”This would lead to catastrophic consequences not only for Europe, but the entire world,” she warned.
French President Emmanuel Macron floated the idea of putting NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine in February, claiming it could be ruled out. Most other member states said they would not be sending their troops on such a mission. Macron later claimed that his remarks were intended to create “strategic ambiguity” and keep Moscow guessing about NATO’s future actions.
