Estonia has long been no friend of Russia, and a leading anti-Moscow hawkish voice within the Baltics, and that's why a fresh interview by Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur in European media is raising eyebrows as he issued some very revealing statements.
The defense chief said in the interview with the Austrian newspaper Die Presse that all NATO countries already have NATO personnel stationed in Ukraine, but that they aren't directly engaged in hostilities as they are there in advisory roles. He was responding to recent provocative statements by France's Macron.
"The reality is that every NATO member country already has military personnel in Ukraine, such as military attaches or people who travel to Ukraine from time to time," the Estonian defense chief said. "What [French] President [Emmanuel] Macron said mainly related to personnel training," he added, according to a translation in Russian media.
Starting in late February Macron had told a gathering of top defense officials in Paris that Western boots on the ground in Ukraine should be an option as "we cannot exclude anything" in the pursuit of preventing Russia from winning the war.
Still, in the interview Pevkur emphasized that currently there's no serious talk of NATO troops directly participating in fighting and that "this has already been ruled out."
However, he did preview a very dangerous potential plan which would certainly lead to escalation: "Western defense officials are currently planning to set up training camps in Ukraine in a bid to avoid issues with border crossings and to speed up the preparation process," Pevkur said to the Vienna-based publication.
Already, Moscow has accused France of having significant numbers of its Foreign Legion present on the front lines. Russia has said it has attacked their positions in places like Kharkiv.
Some European leaders have revealed information in the recent past which shows Defense Minister Pevkur's words to be accurate.
For example in February British Prime Minister Sunak's office said that the UK is not planning a "large-scale deployment of troops" in Ukraine... "Other than a small number of personnel who are in the country supporting the Ukrainian armed forces, we have no plans for a large-scale deployment."
Dangerously, this shows that little by little, inch by inch, nuclear armed superpowers are at this rate continuously moving toward direct conflict in Ukraine.
