Mikser: Estonia, NATO allies can prevent Putin’s potential provocations
According to Minister of Foreign Affairs Sven Mikser (SDE), Russian President Vladimir Putin may try to test the red line, however Estonia and its NATO allies can together stave off provocations on Russia’s part.
Speaking in an interview with daily Postimees (link in Estonian), Mikser said that Putin may be tempted to put the new administration in the US to the test, and to take advantage of the moment in which the old administration is no longer in power and its successor has yet to take over.
“But that is preventable — the more clearly collective messages are communicated, the fewer attempts he will make to toy with the red line,” noted the Estonian minister, adding that the sooner the new US administration was in place, the smaller the likelihood would become that this would happen.
According to Mikser, Putin had made a number of miscalculations regarding the occupation of Crimea and war in Eastern Ukraine, as he believed that Ukraine wasn’t that unified internally and was incapable of mobilizing itself so swiftly and surely and believed that the international community was weaker and more ambiguous [than they proved to be].
“The fact that these calculations proved inaccurate was very positive on one hand, but on the other hand a sign of a certain danger, as it indicated that Putin is capable of making miscalculations,” continued Estonia’s foreign minister. “We certainly don’t want him to make a miscalculation in our region.”
“We are confident in our allies that we will not be gifted away in some geostrategic game,” Mikser continued. “It is not only important that we know this, but that Putin knows this as well.”
Editor: Editor: Aili Vahtla