The minister was not simply thinking aloud, but said as much to his U.S. counterpart Pete Hegseth at a NATO defense ministers' summit both attended in Brussels Thursday and ahead of today's Munich security summit, which Pevkur is also attending.

Ahead of the Brussels talks, Defense Secretary Hegseth had called "unrealistic" the full liberation of Ukraine from Russian occupation since 2014 along the lines of its sovereign borders.

Hegseth saw Ukrainian NATO membership in the same way.

Minister Pevkur gave an interview on the subject to ERR, which follows, starting with the parallels which have been drawn between the current U.S. line on Ukraine and Russia and the appeasement of the 1930s.

When the planned talks between Trump and Putin on Ukraine's future were discussed between defense ministers in Brussels yesterday, was there any mention of a parallel with the 1938 Munich agreement? Did anyone bring up a comparison like that?

I did not directly hear any such parallel.

Instead, the discussion focused on the substance and the idea that it would be unwise to hand Putin any trump cards.

Even if negotiations are the wish, first principles must be clear: There can be no peace in Ukraine yet without Ukraine. The second principle is that there can be no peace in Ukraine without Europe at the table.

Our stance remains very clear—Ukraine's territorial integrity is not up for debate; Ukraine must regain all of its territory at some point.

Secondly, of course, if anyone wants to discuss Ukraine's future in a way that involves Europe taking greater responsibility, it cannot be done without Europe.

Before the Brussels meeting, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated that restoring Ukraine's 2014 borders is not realistic. He also said that after a peace agreement is reached, European forces must ensure Ukraine's security, while the U.S. will not participate in peacekeeping, and NATO's Article Five will not apply to peacekeepers from NATO countries in Ukraine.

How would you characterize the shift in attitude among European defense ministers in the aftermath of these messages? Did you sense that they encouraged an approach whereby Europe significantly increases its defense spending and fills the gap if the U.S. withdraws its own military support for Ukraine? Or was there more of a sentiment that, if the U.S. withdraws, then Europe would also not do much?

I would say that there were three categories of countries.

This is no surprise—Hungary has always advocated for achieving peace via diplomatic means, and has done so for years.

The second category consists of countries that are cautious, whose defense spending is not even at 2 percent [of GDP per year] yet. For these, discussing a hike in defense spending is quite challenging.

The third group, which counts among others in its ranks Estonia and Germany, strongly stated—myself included—that we can in no wise tolerate a situation in which one party seizes another's territory by force, while then peace negotiations are conducted somewhere on the touchlines.

When it comes to boosting defense spending, the general consensus was that it must be raised.

But words alone are not enough. In fact, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte also said that no one should assume that no new level of spending will come from The Hague—indeed it will. What that level will be remains to be seen, but it is likely to be above 3 percent, and that is the direction things are moving (the Netherlands itself, Rutte is a Dutchman, had long spent below the 2-percent recommended level on defense – ed.).

Ultimately, decisions must come from the national capitals though. In this respect, I actually agree with Pete Hegseth, who said that, in the end, every European country's capital must decide how it perceives the Russian threat, and how much it is willing to invest in defense.
I forecast that over the next two to three months, these discussions will intensify significantly regarding what the new level of defense spending will turn out as.

Second, to be frank, there is no alternative—it is clear that the U.S. focus is on the Indo-Pacific region, while Europe must take significantly greater responsibility for its own security.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told journalists that he thinks the U.S. should not have made concessions prior to the negotiations starting. Did he and other European defense ministers say the same thing directly to the U.S. defense secretary, in a face-to-face meeting?

Yes, I said it, Pistorius said it, and several other countries also said it.

My message was actually very plain—we cannot make these potential negotiations easy for Putin. I also said explicitly that when anyone wants to enter negotiations, they cannot ditch their two strongest trump cards right at the outset.

From a Ukrainian perspective, their two strongest trump cards are their desire to join the EU and NATO, and second, the restoration of their territorial integrity.
These are clearly what Ukraine seeks, logically so. If these things get dismissed by others, it will undoubtedly create tensions within the Ukrainian leadership—how can they negotiate anything if their ultimate goal is the full restoration of the Ukrainian state, within the borders agreed upon after the collapse of the Soviet Union?

Ukraine is also absolutely right, because with the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, they gave up nuclear weapons. Through later agreements… no one wants to see a revival of the Minsk Agreements.

There are actually many components to this issue. Starting, of course, with what "peace" actually means—what the composition of Russian troops near the front line might be, what the composition of Ukrainian forces near the front line will be, what Ukraine's prospects of joining the EU and NATO are, and so on. There are certainly many questions that Ukraine cannot exit peace negotiations without addressing.

Putin's demands are not limited to annexing Ukrainian territories and a regime change in Kyiv. He is also demanding that NATO retreat to its 1997 borders, meaning that Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary would have to leave NATO. Did you discuss Putin's NATO-related demands with U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth yesterday? Is the U.S. willing to negotiate on Putin's demands when it comes to NATO?

We do not know exactly what will be put on the table, but our role was to clearly remind the U.S.—and in this case, Pete Hegseth—about history. One example is Putin's speech, here in Munich, in 2007, as well as the ultimatums he presented to NATO and to the U.S. in December 2021. We can find many examples of Putin's red lines through history, but I specifically pointed out the December 2021 ultimatum.

Actually, one of the primary aims of this meeting was to ensure that NATO allies who are willing to speak up—including, beyond the Baltic states, Germany—make it clear that, first, if America wants Europe to take on a greater responsibility, then Europe must be included in the decision-making, along with Ukraine.
Second, of course, those of us in this region understand Russia's behavioral patterns. I also pointed out that the root cause of this war—the term "root cause" was actually used in Trump and Putin's conversation—is just one thing: Putin's personal decision to start this war in order to restore the Russian empire.

These understandings were all talked over yesterday and the day before, during the Ramstein format meeting. Now we have to monitor how much of this knowledge the U.S. defense secretary takes back to the White House and what the next steps from there will be.

But certainly, here in Munich, since both J.D. Vance, as vice president, and special envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg, are present, we will hear and see a great deal of important information today and tomorrow.

What does this situation spell for Estonia? Is increasing defense spending to 5 percent and accelerating the procurement of ammunition and new capabilities now a foregone conclusion?

My goal is indeed to go to the government in the coming weeks and provide an overview of both the NATO defense ministers' meeting and the military capability objectives that we are very close to agreeing on with our allies.

The June defense ministers' meeting is where these military capability goals must be approved by all. For this reason, I do say that increasing defense spending is unavoidable.

What are your meetings and expectations with the ongoing Munich security conference? Let me go back to the beginning of our interview: I have reached you on the phone from Munich.

One is a number of various roundtables and panels, where you can present your views to a wider audience and talk about why it is important to invest more in defense.

The other half is various bilateral meetings.

The third – perhaps even the most important – is that you can actually talk to each other at pace and in the corridors, with no cameras or mics present. I think that this aspect has always been very, very important in Munich.

Being on this public stage is one thing, but the other aspect is really amassing information, getting to know the moods, getting a feel for different countries, and then starting to draw conclusions from all of that.

This has always been the place in Europe, once a year, where a lot of foreign and security policy decisions, and the reasons behind them, can be learned. That is why we came here from Estonia with a fairly high-level delegation right now; the President of the Republic [Alar Karis] is also in Munich.

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