"Looking at the commitments and deliveries contracted over the last few years, overall the largest supply partners are companies from Germany (€650 million), the USA (€350 million), France (€170 million), Spain (€160 million) and Israel (€150 million)," said Andri Maimets, the spokesperson of the National Center for Defense Investments (RKIK), to ERR.

He stressed the data is not wholly accurate as Estonia makes agreements with companies, not countries. Additionally, global defense industry supply chains are interlinked and overlap.

Germany was the largest recipient of Estonian defense investment spending last year. This is due to procurement deals struck for ammunition and IRIS–T medium-range air defense systems, Maimets said.

Estonia is also buying Javelin anti-tank missile systems, HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, communication equipment, and ammunition from American manufacturers.

Additional air surveillance and defense equipment, such as GM 403 radars and Mistral missiles, and ammunition, including Bonus 155 mm anti-tank missiles, are being purchased from French companies.

"Spain's Instalaza and EXPAL, Europe's largest ammunition producer, supply large quantities of large caliber and anti-tank ammunition, while Israeli companies supply anti-ship, anti-tank missile systems and armaments," Maimets added.

The spokesman said procurement deals do not affect relations with each country: "As allies of the European Union and NATO, we work closely together, and they are also strong defenders of NATO's eastern flank, contributing to air security and medium-range air defense, but it is certainly inappropriate to link procurement to this issue."

He said RKIK agrees on procurements based on a "competitive basis". "With the most economically advantageous bidder winning and the outcome of the procurement not influenced by political considerations," he stressed.

In December, RKIK Director General Magnus-Valdemar Saar told ERR News that "any given year" before 2023 the USA had been the biggest recipient of Estonia's defense spending.

"For the next few years, Germany will be first, but the U.S. is close second," he said, highlighting the IRIS–T procurement deal which amounts to almost €400 million, the biggest in Estonian history.

A recently published review by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), shows the United States, France, and Russia were the world's largest arms exporters between 2019–2023.

They were followed by China, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Israel, and South Korea.

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