Ministers warn from Ukraine to increase the Russian threat in the Baltic region

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Defense ministers in the region have warned that the ceasefire in Ukraine will significantly increase the security threat to the Baltic countries, as Russia will continue in plans to remove the forces and re -publish to the northeastern NATO wing.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which was included in the Soviet Union before the recovery of independence in the 1990s, is concerned that Moscow will not stop in Ukraine as soon as the Trump administration stopped. Baltic countries indicate that the Kremlin has already made plans to increase military production and additional forces along their borders.

“We all understand that when the war is stopped in Ukraine, Russia will redistribute its forces very quickly,” Estonian Defense Secretary Hano Bevercor told the Financial Times. “This also means that the level of threat will increase very quickly.”

His Lithuanian counterpart, Dofili šakalienė, made similar statements while he was in the United Kingdom earlier in the week.

She said: “Let’s do not have any delusions. Let us not lie to ourselves that Russia will take place after Ukraine.” “Russia will use this time after a ceasefire to accelerate its military capabilities. They already have a huge army trained in the battlefield, which will become greater.”

The Trump administration has led talks with both Russia and Ukraine to end the war, but still a full ceasefire. While Kiev agreed to an immediate waqf of hostility in the Black Sea and a 30 -day ceasefire, supported by the United States, Moscow has not yet pledged to stop the attacks on energy infrastructure, saying that it would comply with the Black Sea deal only after the West raised economic sanctions.

However, the stopping in the fighting will give Russia an opportunity to fulfill its plans for 2022 to raise a strong army of 1.5 million and Add the entire new army corps in the north, Double the number of forces near Finland and Baltik.

Bifkor said that among the 600,000 Russian soldiers are currently estimated to be in Ukraine, 300,000 are likely to be republished. “These men will not return to different parts of Russia to harvest corn or do something else because the salary they get in the army is five to 10 times more than they can get in their city.”

The Baltic countries are particularly concerned about a large -scale military exercise known as Zabad close to their borders in Russia and Belarus this fall. The exercises are governed every four years, and they mimic a conflict with NATO countries and include tens of thousands of forces, tanks, aircraft and artillery.

Both ministers also warned against re -spreading any NATO forces from their countries to form the so -called European “power of reassurance” that will be sent to Ukraine after the conflict as a way to deter Russia from the attack again.

“We cannot endanger the security of the NATO,” said Bevkor. “We cannot fall into the trap that our forces are in one way or another in Ukraine. Then we will have risks on our borders.”

The countries of the eastern side in NATO, including Poland and Romania, said they could not adhere to the deployment of forces in Ukraine at the expense of their security. Estonia also objected to the UK’s plans to re -publish the British -Ukrainian forces dedicated to the defense of the Baltic.

Currently, Lithuania is defended by a German brigade that is scheduled to be concentrated in its soil in the coming months, and Latvia is protected with a multinational force led by Canada and Estonia by a British brigade that can be sent from the United Kingdom in a short notice.

“We got less than a thousand soldiers in the United Kingdom in Estonia at the present time,” said British Defense Secretary John Healy earlier this week. “This consistent IronClad’s commitment to Estonia – and it will continue because Estonia and our forces … in the confrontation line in NATO.”