"This rethinking of the [defense] concept actually came about in 2022, before the NATO Madrid Summit," Laanet said.

"Whereas before, the idea was that if, for example, Russia attacked Estonia, Russian troops entered Estonian territory, and war started, Estonia and its allies would counterattack and try to drive those troops out. But today's conceptual change is that we are basically defending every inch of Estonian territory. And if we now go a step further, we will do everything to ensure that Russian troops cannot and will not want to enter Estonian territory. Which means that we are developing a greater and more far-reaching firepower," said Laanet.

"It serves two purposes: if an attack is planned, and we have advance knowledge of this, if this decisive step is taken, we can attack forces already further away in Russia. And the other side is, of course, that if the Russian Federation leadership sees that Estonia is capable of such defensive action, it will be a very strong deterrence element and will certainly put into consideration whether it makes sense to attack Estonia, if the losses to Estonia could be sufficiently high. There's the difference," he explained.

Laanet said that he replaced Kristo Enn Vaga at the meeting of the Riigikogu's National Defense Committee on May 9, and was not left with such a negative impression as described by Permanent Secretary Kusti Salm, who announced his resignation on Wednesday. However, the new concept was a surprise to the committee members.

"I was left with the impression that at least most, I don't know if all, but most of those members of the National Defense Committee saw the new defense concept presented today by the chief of the defense forces together with the permanent secretary of the ministry of defense for the first time," he said.

"I did not get the impression that anyone had argued against this concept. There were different opinions expressed about how best to defend Estonia, how much of an allied role there should be, how much of an independent defense capability we should have, and so on. But I did not get the impression that there was any clear opposition to the idea that we should not take steps to better defend Estonia by finding somewhere in the order of €1.6 billion from Estonian taxpayers in the coming years. I was left with no such feeling," he confirmed.

Laanet said that Reform's financial experts are looking at where to get the money from.

"Yes, we certainly need a lot more money. The finance specialists of our Reform Party group and the party leadership are working on how we can find the additional money, what would be the most sensible way from the point of view of the state budget, and how the Estonian taxpayers would be prepared to contribute. So I believe that in the coming weeks our party's finance specialists will come out with this proposal," he said.

He said the public is ready for extra expenses.

"The question is whether the Estonian people are willing to give more money for national defense, and my feeling is that the Estonian people are more willing to give money out of their own pockets. Whether this is a long-term period or a short-term period is a matter of agreement and discussion. What form it will take, whether it will be in the form of a tax or whether it will be in the form of a bond or what form it will take, that is now again for the financial experts to work out.  But it is clear that people want to contribute more today. And with that in mind, at least for us, the idea is clear that it has to be done, and the question of how exactly to do it should be clear in the coming weeks," Laanet stressed.

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