At the same time, Kaljulaid said that a widely criticized speech by U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance at last week's Munich Security Conference disrupted the event's political culture and also missed the key point in relation to Russia.

Kaljulaid noted that the new U.S. administration may at least bring home some unpalatable truths to some of the Western European nations when it comes to defense spending and the Russian threat.

"Just as during Trump's first term — what should we have against it when a major ally finally tells Western Europe the truth?" she noted on her social media account.

Underlying this was a deep sense of unfairness when comparing the situation on NATO's eastern flank with that in some of the larger and more comfortably off western countries.

"How fair is it that many of Europe's smaller and less wealthy nations are spending until they bleed, while richer and larger countries further away consider this normal simply because 'you have a greater sense of danger'?" Kaljulaid went on.

"The real issue is not that Americans call out European inaction, but that we ourselves no longer believe that European allies will truly step up," she continued.

The U.S. is well aware of Estonia's defense contributions and would not abandon such an ally, but Western European powers are not just free-riding on U.S. defense spending—they are also doing so at the expense of the Baltics, she added.

Kaljulaid however also criticized Vice President Vance's approach at the Munich conference, noting she: "Does not dispute the vice president's right to discuss the topic, and in Davos, where discussions center on how the economy shapes the world order, a debate of that kind would have been completely appropriate."

"But what kind of cultural norms are we actually trying to protect if democracies themselves interpret them differently?" Kaljulaid added.

Kaljulaid said that Vance, despite his words, did not address the core issue facing the Munich summit — how to deter Russia.

"No doubt many would have liked to debate J.D. Vance on the substance of his speech, but the truly shocking part was that he did not address the main issue at all," Kaljulaid, who attended the Munich conference herself, went on.

She also laid an implicit charge of election interference, linking this with the influence tech giant Elon Musk seems to have had over the White House with the entry into office of Donald Trump last month.

"In practice, however, it is not exactly pleasant when, instead of TikTok being used to interfere in Romanian elections, this is now being done from the Munich podium through the mouth of the U.S. vice president — or at the same time on X by Elon Musk," she wrote.

"How are social media or AI companies supposed to understand what is even expected of them?" she added.

The former president pointed out that while each new U.S. administration uses the Munich Security Conference to present its approach to European allies, and while this time was no different from Donald Trump's previous term in office: "The vice president is present, actively engaging and delivering messages that cause constant mood swings among the attendees," she wrote, adding that compared with the situation eight years ago when Trump was embarking on his first administration, the situation is much more fragile, with many remarks deepening the "general sense of security-related despair."

Kaljulaid added that Republicans other than Vance have offered some forward-looking solutions but recalled that Europeans are not, in this narrative, capable of taking an adult role in these solutions, as they lack the resolve to do so.

"This is, of course, true. It remains frustrating to hear how we in the East supposedly do not understand how hard it is to spend 3 or 4 percent of GDP on defense. We do understand — we are already spending, and our entire society is already feeling the burden," Kaljulaid wrote in her post.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Vice President Vance, while at Munich, did not rule out sending U.S. troops to Ukraine if Russia doesn't engage constructively in peace talks, and highlighted using economic and military levers to influence Russia.

In his speech Vance criticized European leaders for suppressing free speech, citing the U.K. as one example. Here, he referenced a 2022 case in England where a man was arrested for silently praying near a Bournemouth abortion clinic and also criticized Scotland's safe zones, which he claimed restricted such activity even in private homes, if they are close to abortion clinics. The Scottish government has denied this.

Kersti Kaljulaid's term as Estonian president roughly coincided in time with Donald Trump's first term as U.S. president. She is now head of the Estonian Olympic Committee (EOK), 

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