EU member states should be ready to send military forces to Ukraine if US President-elect Donald Trump brokers a peace deal between Kiev and Moscow, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna has said.
In an interview with the Financial Times on Tuesday, Tsahkna insisted that NATO membership would provide the best security guarantee for Kiev. Should Trump oppose it, the EU would have to step in and deploy troops once the fighting is over, he said.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has claimed that joining the US-led military bloc, which Russia perceives as a threat, is the only viable way to ensure his country’s national security other than acquiring nuclear weapons. An immediate invitation to NATO was part of the ‘victory plan’ Zelensky presented to the public last month for ending the conflict with Russia.
“If we are talking about real security guarantees, it means that there will be a just peace. Then we are talking about NATO membership,” Tsahkna told FT. “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,” he said.
There has been “a lot of talk and lots of communication” among Kiev’s supporters following Trump’s victory in the US presidential election and in light of Ukraine’s recent battlefield losses, he acknowledged.
Estonia has been a strong backer of Ukraine and has consistently called for increasingly tough measures against Moscow.
Tsahkna admitted it would be very complicated for the EU to provide any security guarantees to Kiev without US backing. He also raised doubts that Trump would abandon NATO, citing America’s political and economic interests.
Throughout his campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to end the Ukraine conflict “in 24 hours” if elected. He didn’t explain how he would do this, although he has claimed that he would use his “great relationship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, to broker a peace deal.
While the Kremlin has repeatedly downplayed suggestions that Trump could easily end the conflict with Kiev, Putin said the president-elect’s statements on the matter “deserve attention, at the very least.”
The Estonian foreign minister has urged the EU states to ramp up the capacity of their own defense industry, claiming that with Ukraine now seen as NATO’s first line of defense, the EU’s security architecture could be reshaped in the coming months rather than just Kiev’s fate.
“We just cannot wait on whatever the US decides,” the Estonian cabinet member stressed.
The Russian president has repeatedly dismissed claims of any possible military advance against NATO countries by Moscow as “nonsense.”