Dutch minister: Netherlands' defense starts with the Baltic states

The defense of the Netherlands starts with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and their borders with the Russian Federation, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said this week.
The minister has been in Tallinn this week and made her remarks in an interview given to ETV foreign affairs show "Välisilm."
Starting in December, Dutch stealth fighters will be stationed in Estonia for three months, and a Patriot air defense system will be sent to Lithuania for a few weeks in the summer.
Minister Ollongren stressed that the current priority remains support for Ukraine, with donated fighters jets from the Netherlands and Denmark to start arriving in-country this summer as a result.
Ollongren said: "We are on a schedule where this summer the first Danish airframes will be delivered to Ukraine. The Dutch airframes we will deliver in batches, and we hope to start that this fall."
Along with the aircraft, spare parts and weaponry are to be sent to Ukraine, while preparations will be made in terms of Ukrainian infrastructure too.
The Netherlands plans to donate a total of 24 fighter jets to Ukraine. This is being done as the country renews its air force fleet.
Ollongren said: "We have a few that we still have to decide on, but we are phasing them out in our air force. These are the numbers that are sure, but maybe we will have a few extras."
The Royal Netherlands Air Force is to rely on Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs in the future. Some squadrons already have these, which will also come to Estonia late on this year, flying from Ämari as part of the NATO Baltic Air Policing Mission.
The Netherlands has also deployed several hundred troops in Lithuania, while MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) in Dutch service are to head to Lithuania for exercises for several weeks this summer.
Ollongren summed this up by saying: "We see that the Russian threat that you face is real, and we consider your border here also to be our border. We don't start defending the Netherlands, in the Netherlands, at the border with Germany. We start defending our security here."
While deploying Patriot SAMs to Lithuania allows the Dutch to rehearse bringing air defense to the Baltic states region, it does not represent the permanent allied air defense presence that allies agreed upon in principle at the Vilnius NATO summit last year, however.
"What you see with the air defense, and especially with the Patriots, is the scarce capability."
"We do all now prioritize Ukraine. Ukraine really needs more air defense, and we have also donated parts of our Patriot systems to Ukraine, because they need it now, or they needed it already before. At the same time, I think you were right also in putting this on the agenda. We need stronger air defense also for Europe, especially for the eastern part of the NATO alliance. This rotational model is I think a good idea that has to be elaborated on by NATO," Ollongren went on.
NATO allies do not have sufficient air defense to concurrently defend their own countries, assist Ukraine, and shield the Baltic states.
"The most we now are able to do is do an exercise in Lithuania, to show that we do what we can," Ollongren said regarding this.
Strengthening air defense will likely be a task for the next NATO Secretary-General, a position which may be filled by Ollongren's colleague, the current Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte come autumn.
Most allies, including major countries and Estonia, support Rutte for the secretary-general position. However, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas (Reform) has previously noted that although Estonia and neighboring countries have been in NATO for 20 years, there are few people from the eastern wing in leading positions within the alliance.
Ollongren says that the Netherlands' aid to Ukraine shows that Rutte understands the concerns of NATO's eastern flank, including Estonia.
"He has shown it also for instance when the MH17 passenger plane was shot down over Ukraine in 2014 by a Russian missile; let's not forget that. We have always said since that moment, and Mark Rutte personally also, we will hold the Russians and Putin accountable for the killing of all those people, many of them Dutch, on that airplane.
"So I think that if you look at what he has done, what he has achieved, you will see that he is a person who has our common interests in mind, and especially also the interests of Estonia and other NATO allies in this part of the world," Ollongren added.
The original interview can be viewed below.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Aleksander Krjukov
Source: 'Välisilm'