Among European leaders, French President Emmanuel Macron has spoken about sending troops to Ukraine in the clearest terms. Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania's foreign minister, has suggested that Western soldiers could help train Ukrainian fighters there. Estonia's incoming army chief Col. Andrus Merilo has also described the idea as sensible. Do I have it right that the topic has stopped being taboo and is instead being seriously discussed in Estonia and Western Europe, with memos and analyses in the works?

It is being discussed at the highest level, including at the recent EU ministerial, where EU High Representative Josep Borrell said that we need to facilitate Ukraine should they ask for help with this. And because Ukraine's Defense Minister Rustem Umerov was with us via video link and also raised the issue, it is naturally something we're discussing.

The biggest issue we've raised is the risk-benefit ratio. Today, we are training the Ukrainians in Poland. It's not far to Ukraine from there. Talking about trainings in Western Ukraine, west of Lviv, the city is just a few hours' bus journey from the Polish border. We need to ask whether five or six hours by bus is worth the risk sending Western troops into Ukraine would entail.

There are also a lot of technical nuances in terms of the size of these training groups. Whether we're talking about small bomb squads or training brigade-level units? The nuances are myriad.

That is why a French forward team visited Ukraine and this matter is kept at the level of discussions today to determine potential risks and questions before we can take any decision.

Right now, the debates are stalling because of the French president's decision to disband the parliament. It is bound to affect France's take on this and other initiatives.

Has the head of the French army's general staff sent Estonia an invitation to participate in the training mission?

There is communication at various levels, and we are interested in being kept in the loop. After all, we are among Ukraine's biggest supporters. Also as concerns our recent decision to send over Mistral air defenses – I received a warm message of thanks from Ukraine's defense minister yesterday according to which Estonia is still blazing a trail.

It is in our interests to be included in these debates. But we have our rational position and questions that need answers. It is clear that no one will be going in there to play cowboy.

Western countries have trained over 130,000 Ukrainian soldiers in recent years. You mentioned Poland, but soldiers are also being trained in Germany and the U.K. and have been in Estonia. What do the proponents of doing the trainings in Ukraine say? Is saving a few hours by bus really seen as the only benefit?

The biggest perceived benefit on the political-strategic level is deterrence and sending a message to Russia that we will not abandon Ukraine and are willing to go farther in helping them. Talk of whether different steps consider an escalation has been around since 2014.

First, it was argued that sending howitzers would be an escalation. Estonia sent Ukraine howitzers as did other states – nothing. Then it was asked whether sending tanks would amount to escalation. Russia once again put on a massive campaign to say how it would be an escalation and that steps would follow. Next came the F-16 coalition, and whether sending over fighter jets is an escalation. After that we had the long-range missiles question. Concerns of escalation have been around all along.

Now, Russia has suggested that having Western boots on the ground in Ukraine is an escalation. So we keep hearing these things, while we also know that such political-strategic messages affect the course of the war. /.../

Talking about demining, which the Lithuanians have been in charge of, training can be done in very small groups and kept well under wraps. It would entail relatively little risk.

If we're talking about brigade-level exercises with 3,000-5,000 participants or battalion-level at 500-800 men, neither the units to be trained or those doing the training would go unnoticed.

This would make them targets, and I'm sure Russia is interested in disrupting Ukraine's training efforts using long-range strikes. That is where we're discussing what would be sensible and wouldn't be, as well as what the benefit would be. But sending a political message to Russia is also a major component in the decision.

Training a thousand troops requires hundreds of instructors on location.

That depends on the nature of training. Looking at the EU's EUMAM mission or the Brits' Interflex, which also includes Estonian instructors, they have 30-40 people training company-level units. The ratio is more or less one instructor per three trainees. But it is possible to train troops with fewer instructors.

Some say that the advantage of training troops in Ukraine is the mixed use of Western and Ukrainian instructors.

While that's true, it must also be kept in mind that the bigger the unit, the more territory you need for maneuvers. It is not a case of showing them a gun in a classroom and then squeezing off a few rounds at the firing range.

Training instructors has also been a part of the training mission. Perhaps we can train Ukrainian instructors. For example, deminers can be trained in small groups.

Would having Western instructors in Ukraine make them legitimate targets? Would they be combatants?

There are Western military personnel in Ukraine today. They are not combatants in the classical sense. No instructor is a combatant. While they are military personnel, they're visiting. Estonia's two defense attachés are also professional EDF members. But they are not combatants, they're there on assignment. And it has been clearly said in the West that these instructors are not combatants, that the West will not be fighting in Ukraine.

But they'd still need to take their weapons with them for protection?

That is one of the matters we're discussing. Benefits, cost and risks are one half of the decision, while defending our personnel against airstrikes or possible subversive activity is another. Because the Russians have plenty of spies in Ukraine. So protecting our personnel is extremely important. That is also why we say that we must be pragmatic. We want answers to a lot of questions before we can even continue the debate.

How urgently should the decision be made?

It's not something we need to decide by tomorrow so to speak, because training is going ahead. I also told my colleagues at our recent meeting that the easiest thing would be to tell Russia and all of our allies that we're expanding the EU training mission from sixty thousand to a hundred thousand and Interflex also to a hundred thousand. That is the first message we can send quickly, and I believe all allies would go along with it. The question is whether the Ukrainians have enough troops for us to train.

So I would start by increasing EU and Interflex training volumes. And once that has been done and the other questions have been answered, that is when we could discuss whether to move forward with any additional small-scale trainings in Ukraine.

But it seems today that France will not be the political locomotive for this thing. We'll have to wait for the results of two rounds of parliamentary elections in France on June 30 and July 7.

Despite ongoing training in Western Europe, the Ukrainians want to know whether it could also take place in Ukraine. Is sending Russia a message also their main argument?

They're also looking at the time factor and many other small details: border crossings, language, familiar conditions, reducing the risk of defection etc. There are a number of positive aspects for Ukraine, while, as I've said, we need to consider all benefits and all of the risks.

Please describe these risks in more detail. Is escalation considered the main risk or is it the chance of allied troops facing direct kinetic threats? What is standing in the way of the decision?

The risk of instructors being hurt is the main thing. Russia would be tempted to attempt a provocation or to just attack them. Should a French or Lithuanian serviceman die as a result of such an attack, what would be our response? Would we respond at all?

And we cannot compare it to a situation where a defense attaché is hurt in a random air strike – God forbid. An instructor being hurt or killed while training troops would be a very different situation.

Do I understand you right that you consider a smaller-scale demining training operation to be more likely?

No decisions have been made at this time. We haven't even deemed it necessary at the Ministry of Defense to take an in-depth analysis to the government. /.../

But looking at risks versus potential benefits, special training for small groups, training instructors for example, is very different from training major units at the battalion or brigade levels.

/.../

Because the Brits have quite publicly admitted that their military advisers or, let's say, special operators are active in Ukraine, and the French have admitted their people are helping to aim certain weapons, I would ask what are our operators doing in Ukraine?

According to public information, we organized training in peacetime. Of course, various EDF members have visited Ukraine during the war, all the way to the EDF commander.

We mainly go on information gathering missions. But former Defense League head Gen. Ühtegi has been there both to give and receive information. We do visit from time to time, but there is nothing that resembles what is being discussed in connection with the French initiative. These things need to be seen separately.

In other words, we go there to see what kind of weapons they need and what is the effect of Western aid?

Our airmen have been over to learn how to prevent drone warfare, how to prepare for it and how to set up a public air raid system. When people in South Estonia were notified via SMS messages during the Spring Storm exercise, or when we used air raid sirens, we utilized various ideas from Ukraine.

Similarly, the Ole Valmis application will soon forward pictures people can take of flying objects and enter in the app directly to the airspace control center. These are some of the things our Air Force personnel have discussed in Ukraine.

And we're also training Ukrainian troops?

We do not have a training mission as such. As I said, the few EDF members who have been to Ukraine have been on assignment.

I suppose you cannot and aren't willing to discuss Estonian operators?

There is nothing to comment on. The people we have in Ukraine are on assignment. There's little else to say.

The Ministry of Defense's administrative area also includes the Foreign Intelligence Service, which is surely present in Ukraine. I suppose it is the case for all intelligence services?

Irrespective of whether and where our intelligence operatives are active, this information and the methods being used are on a need-to-know basis, for obvious reasons.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!