Russian incursion is a ‘red line’ : NPR
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, Margus Tsahkna, delivers a statement at an emergency meeting of the Security Council to the United Nations on September 22 in New York.
Spencer Platt / Getty images
hide
tilting legend
Spencer Platt / Getty images
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia says that NATO is ready to respond to new Russian threats.
“It is a warning to Putin not to test us anymore,” said Margus Tsahkna in a recent interview with NPR Morning edition.
The comments came after President Trump said that the NATO countries should shoot down Russian planes that enter their airspace, marking a change in the president of Russia.
Trump met following a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while Mount’s calls so that NATO members use strength to stop Russian provocations on the eastern flank of the Alliance.
Last week, two Russian fighter planes entered Estonian airspace where they stayed for 12 minutes before being escorted to the international sky.
The foray is the last of what NATO called “a wider scheme of Russian behavior increasingly irresponsible”.
Moscow denies entering Estonian airspace.
In response to the violation, Estonia invoked article 4 of the NATO Treaty, calling for an official consultation between the Member States to discuss the violation. The United Nations Security Council also met to discuss the foray.
It was the second time that NATO ally has been invoked the article in a few weeks. Poland did it after having shot down several Russian drones that violated its airspace earlier this month.
Steve Inskeep of NPR spoke with Tsahkna to talk about his country’s response.
This interview is slightly modified for length and clarity.
Steve Inskeep: Can you tell me, is Estonia, in fact, prepared to open fire if necessary on Russian planes.
Margus Tsahkna: As President Trump said, and also, Secretary General Rutte said NATO was ready to act. You know, that’s why we are actually a member of NATO. So if Russia returns like a threat, then NATO will act as it was supposed to do. But it was very important that President Trump said very clearly to a political level that we will do. It is therefore a red line and it is a warning to Putin not to test us anymore.
Inskeep: You just said “red line”. And you also mentioned President Trump’s comments. I understood her comments yesterday as resetting the American position to what it was during the Biden administration. This Ukraine should fight and that the United States will continue to send weapons, although in a somewhat different form. What do you do with the change of the president there?
Tsahkna: If you put everything together, which has happened in the past two weeks in Europe, the violation of the airspace of Poland in Estonia – NATO has already gathered twice on article 4 and has made very solid statements and also created the Sentine of the Eastern mission to increase the capacities on the eastern flank. And then also twice the United Nations Security Council met and really said very clear positions on Russian aggressive behavior. And the United States was in a very clear position on this subject. We can therefore say that in rhetoric, at least there was also a change in the position of President Trump. And this is the good news, because we were in the position we need to support Ukraine.
Inskeep: While President Trump took office for the second time, some people feared the end of NATO. Do you think NATO is actually stronger now?
Tsahkna: NATO is stronger now, NATO is politically stronger. In addition, in The Hague, NATO has decided to increase spending to 5% of GDP. And we have also seen that NATO is able to act from the first second on the eastern flank. In Poland, drones were slaughtered. So we can say that we are stronger.
This article was adapted for the web by Lisa Thomson.
