No agreement has yet been reached at the government level on the extent to which an anti-Russian drone wall, part of a wider project planned for NATO's eastern flank, plus a crisis reserve, will be supported from state coffers, Läänemets added.

He said: "I think we'll have more clarity in a few weeks."

"We have basically reviewed the comprehensive national defense investment plan. We have more-or-less a good sense of how this will move forward. We have a good sense of how things could proceed. There is also a table of priorities. Now the question is how much money we have, and whether we will complete some things in part or in full. These negotiations still lie ahead of us," the minister went on.

Läänemets told ERR he has proposed to the government that the full costs of the border infrastructure, ie. the €40 million, be found, which would include not only the physical border fence but also other elements that can help monitor better the border, and repel hybrid attacks too.

The €40 million is divided across three main components, Läänemets said: Tech equipment, access roads and communication systems.

For the first of these, the minister said "we can update some of the older equipment already installed at the beginning of the border project," which began several years ago.

Access roads are "costly, but allow for better and more rapid responses," Läänemets went on, while fences cannot "completely stop people" crossing, though they give better scope for detecting illegal border crossings and responding to them.

Läänemets was mainly referring to migratory pressure such as that seen on the EU's eastern borders in Poland, Lithuania and Latvia from summer 2021.

The €40 million "includes duplicating certain communication systems," Läänemets added, noting this was for backup reasons and as such "not a critical need but certainly an important one."

As noted, if a full drone defense system and/or a civil-military crisis reserve is added, the total required amount could rise to €100 million.

The eastern border "drone wall" would involve technology capable of detecting and neutralizing drones of Russian Federation origin.

The crisis reserve unit made up mainly of Estonian Defense Forces (EDF) reservists, to be trained by the military police (Sõjaväepolitsei) but under Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) direction, already exists though is only about 50-strong at present. The plan is to expand this to around 1,000 in the coming years.

The unit would be tasked with responding to large-scale migration surges at the eastern border.

Work on the eastern border infrastructure, fencing and access roads, particularly in the southeast where the border is a land one, started several years ago. Up to then the frontier had often not been clearly marked; the original eastern border as agreed in the 1920 Treaty of Tartu lay somewhat to the east of the current line.

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