Commander of the Defense Forces, Maj. Gen. Andrus Merilo and Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur (Reform) presented initial plans to reform the Defense Forces and military service just a month ago. As I understand it, those plans have now been fleshed out. How so?

Yes, that's correct. But maybe we should start with the threat outlook — that might help better explain once again why we need to get more specific and provide some background for the announcements we hope will be coming soon from the defense minister and the commander of the Defense Forces.

The threat from Russia has increased sharply. We're seeing that now in the context of a potential ceasefire process being mediated by the United States. Russia has gained a great deal of confidence from this.

As soon as a ceasefire is reached, it will give Russia the opportunity to quickly boost the capabilities of all the new military units it has created near our borders. Right now, Russia is heavily tied up in Ukraine, but a ceasefire would free it up. And we need to be ready for that moment — to make sure the balance between Russian units and our own, along with our NATO allies, does not get thrown off.

That's one of the main reasons we've gone to the government and made it clear that we need additional resources — not only to make the initial preparations, but also to build up the entire structure we'll need in case Russia decides to start testing the resolve of either our independence or NATO's readiness to defend its territory.

So what are these plans, exactly? As I understand it, one part involves increasing the EDF presence in Narva.

Yes, the commander of the Defense Forces has stated that publicly, after discussions with various parliamentary parties — and the response has been surprisingly positive. The question has been raised: why isn't the Defense Forces already in Narva? Through the volunteer Defense League, we do have a presence there, but the plan is to permanently station units in Narva.

The goal is to send a clear signal to the people of Narva that the Estonian state has a strong presence there — to get them used to the idea that Defense Forces personnel are a normal part of daily life in their city. And, in a way, to provide a kind of assurance to Narva residents that we are there, that this is Estonian territory and that Narva is very much a part of Estonia.

So what exactly is planned for Narva? Will there be an entirely new military base built there?

The current plan — without going into too much detail — envisions establishing a base where different units would rotate through, at least according to the initial concept. That means they would be on active readiness duty in Narva for a certain period and then return to either Jõhvi or Tapa to resume their regular training cycles.

How many personnel will be stationed in Narva and who will they be — active-duty soldiers, conscripts or someone else?

It will include active-duty soldiers, conscripts and reservists. The unit assigned to rotate into Narva — depending on where they are in their training cycle — can absolutely bring along its reservists to take part in the active readiness duty there. As for numbers, we're initially talking about roughly 200 to 250 personnel at a time.

Does this increased presence in Narva also mean a greater armed presence — specifically, what kinds of weapons systems will be moved closer to the Russian border?

When the EDF moves into Narva, of course they'll bring all their weapons with them. But this isn't anything new — our troops have already been to Narva with their equipment. For example, the Viru and Kalev battalions, which are based at the Jõhvi garrison, are very actively engaged in the Narva area. They regularly conduct exercises there and even take part in parades. So they'll simply be bringing along the same gear they already use during those activities.

Where exactly will the Defense Forces base be located in the Narva area and what's the current status regarding land acquisition or the development of the base itself?

At the moment, we're at the stage where the State Defense Investment Center (RKIK) is evaluating potential properties in the city of Narva and its surrounding area. We're primarily looking at land that is already state-owned or owned by someone who is interested in selling. Of course, there are specific criteria — like the availability of infrastructure and utilities.

The goal is to place the base as much within the city of Narva as possible, precisely so that it becomes a natural, everyday part of life for the people living there.

What is the actual purpose of the Narva base? How does having 200-250 service members stationed in Narva contribute to Estonia's security? What role does it play from a national defense perspective?

One key aspect is the symbolic message — it shows that Estonian soldiers are serving in a city that sits right on the border and is one of our major urban centers. It sends a clear security signal.

Another important point is that, in a way, this move helps settle a long-standing debt the Defense Forces owes to the people of Narva. Narva has been the only major Estonian city where the Defense Forces has had a very limited presence. If we look at Tallinn — there are established units there. In Tartu, we have the Military Academy, the Defense League and now the 2nd Infantry Brigade. Pärnu had a longstanding military presence as well and we're definitely looking to return there. But Narva has always somehow remained just out of reach — we've been stuck in Jõhvi, so to speak.

Now it's time to take that final, logical step. Throughout Estonia's military history, Narva has always hosted strong Estonian units. It's time to restore that presence.

So in just a few years, could we be seeing British or French troops strolling along the Narva promenade?

Yes, absolutely — our allies go where we go and that's been a deliberate choice. Interestingly, our allies are actually very eager to be in places like Narva and Jõhvi. For them, there's a certain element of the exotic in it.

But from our perspective, the key point is that allied units are integrated with the Estonian Defense Forces. So wherever the EDF is deployed, our allies will be there as well.

You mentioned that the Narva base will host around 200-250 service members. But where will those active-duty soldiers come from, considering previous reports that the EDF is already short-staffed? There are reportedly 500 positions still unfilled. So which personnel will be assigned to Narva? And maybe this leads us into the broader question — how does the Defense Forces plan to solve this staffing issue?

First of all, it's important to emphasize that what's being stationed in Narva is a unit of the Defense Forces — and, again, that includes active-duty personnel, conscripts and reservists. The specific unit will rotate in according to schedule.

It's true that the EDF currently has around 500 vacant positions. On top of that, by 2030, we'll need to fill about 400 more. Where are those new positions coming from? They're tied to all the new capabilities we've committed to in previous national defense development plans — all of which require more and more personnel.

If we look back 10 to 15 years, the EDF was largely infantry-based — a more standard force, where a generalist soldier could manage fairly well. But all of our recent weapons purchases and defense investments have gone into advanced weapons systems that require very specific training and highly specialized operators.

Such as?

For example — air defense systems, anti-ship missile systems and electronic warfare. In those areas, a standard officer education just isn't enough anymore. We need to start recruiting a lot more specialists — engineers, even just to keep those systems operational.

That's actually why the engineering scholarship program was launched. Each year, university students studying in engineering fields can apply. The Defense Forces guarantees that after they complete their master's degree on time, we'll provide them with military training and they can serve as officers. This is how we meet the demands of advancing technology.

In addition to that, we're creating new units and gaining new capabilities.

In short — despite all the technological progress, our most important weapons system is still people. Wars are fought by people, it's still a clash of human wills. And to be able to defend Estonia, what we need most is people.

Now, even though defense spending has increased, people are still being cautious. But it's also created opportunities — many are looking around. The paradox is that the private sector, including the defense industry, can almost always offer better pay and better overall compensation than the Defense Forces.

We've seen a rise in personnel leaving since the military pension system was eliminated. Young officers understand that without any kind of guarantee or incentive — no "carrot" saying, "If you serve these years, the state will take care of you" — many of them are choosing to move on after 10 to 15 years of service. It makes perfect sense. People want to do better for themselves and their families.

To retain active-duty personnel, we definitely need to raise their income. But in reality, the package of personnel-related measures we've proposed doesn't just apply to active-duty soldiers.

It includes more important elements, like increasing conscript allowances by 30 percent and indexing them to inflation over time. We're also proposing transportation reimbursements for conscripts so they don't have to pay out of pocket when traveling home or to duty. We're calling for higher pay for reservists too, because that's been kept at the same low level for too long.

In the end, when the state requires people to perform certain duties — and I don't mean "require" in a negative sense — that also comes with increased responsibility. And that means we have to compensate conscripts and reservists much better than we have up until now.

So this is a whole package of measures that has now been submitted to the defense minister and, hopefully through him, to the government.

There's been a lot of public discussion lately about salaries in the public sector — cultural workers are asking for raises and police and rescue workers have voiced their demands as well. I saw that in 2020, five years ago, the average salary for active-duty military personnel was about 30 percent above the national average. What is the current salary level for active-duty personnel and what should it be next year according to the Defense Forces' proposal?

Let's put it this way — due to the worsening economic situation, the rise in the consumer price index and inflation, we've reached a point where officers and non-commissioned officers in the Defense Forces are essentially earning the national average salary. That 30 percent margin has disappeared.

So in other words, over the past few years, income levels for Defense Forces personnel have actually fallen relative to the Estonian average?

Yes, that's correct.

It's one of the key reasons we're pushing for changes — because we want to retain the people who have served for, say, 20 years. We don't want them leaving in their forties or fifties. After all, we've invested heavily in them so they can help us make smart decisions. If we lose those people...

We sometimes joke that when we take in a young cadet today, it'll be about 10 years before they really start carrying their weight in terms of contributing meaningfully to national defense. That's when they develop the experience, the understanding — they grasp how the force operates, how to interpret different capabilities and battlefield effects. At that point, what we're really paying for is what's going on in their head — not just how accurately they shoot or how fast they run. Those things matter, of course, but the older you get in the military, the more we value how effectively you can think things through, how much you can contribute on a conceptual level to improving the Defense Forces and national defense as a whole.

What should the salary level for active-duty personnel be next year, relative to the Estonian average, for you to feel it's adequate?

I won't give a specific number here — that's something for the defense minister and the commander of the Defense Forces to state. But I will say this: we want to get back to a point where salaries are definitely at least 30 percent above the Estonian average.

That's the minimum?

Yes.

But ideally, you'd like to see it higher than that?

Our goals aren't necessarily about pushing the base salary much higher, but rather about how to better retain long-serving personnel. That's where things like a seniority pay component or similar incentives could come into play. But I'd leave the detailed breakdown of those measures to the commander of the Defense Forces and the defense minister.

How many active-duty personnel will need to be added to the Defense Forces in the coming years to meet these needs? Right now, we know there are 500 unfilled positions. You also mentioned that another 400 will be added over the next five years.

We're talking about roughly 1,000 people that we'll need to bring into the Defense Forces over the next five years — re-engaging former personnel, recruiting new ones, training them and assigning them to work with the aforementioned units and new technologies.

Let's briefly talk about active readiness duty (lahinguvalmidus)." It's a new term that many people haven't heard before and most don't know what it actually means. You mentioned earlier, in the context of Narva, that personnel would rotate in and carry out this readiness duty there. So what exactly does that mean in practice? What is the concept behind it and what will it look like, for example, in Narva?

All the young men and women who've gone through conscription will remember that, for the past 25 years, the Defense Forces has largely operated on a system where we methodically prepare a reserve unit over a long period of time for the Spring Storm exercise. Then that unit gets called up from the reserves for training assemblies and we keep a certain number of units and young people in a constant state of readiness for mobilization.

The changes we want to implement starting in 2027 — where conscription becomes a fixed 12 months and we have two intakes per year — mean that we want conscripts, after completing basic and specialty training, to begin performing what we're calling active readiness duty as full units.

What does that actually mean? Let me give you a simple example.

Take our air defense system. Right now, we could say that Estonia has around 1.5 months of actual readiness per year. That's the window during which the air defense battalion, having fully trained its units, is able to say, "Yes, I can deploy this system right now." The personnel are trained, they can receive information, track enemy aircraft and actually launch missiles or use cannons to neutralize threats. But considering how complex and expensive these systems are — why should we only have them operational for 1.5 months a year? We need them ready as often as possible.

So for a conscript, being on active readiness duty means that for a certain period, they're on 24/7 duty with their system in full operational readiness. They monitor incoming data from the Air Force, they check the status of their weapons and they carry out tactical procedures just as they would in wartime.

For infantry units, it means being ready at any moment to respond rapidly to any threat. That's not how we've trained or used our units in the past.

Earlier, I mentioned that conscripts will have more responsibilities — that's exactly what I meant by active readiness duty. We'll start treating them as our comrades-in-arms during their service. They'll be part of the force we're ready to deploy at a moment's notice.

This doesn't replace our reserve forces. The reserves will still remain the backbone of Estonia's national defense. But this gives us a way to respond more quickly and effectively to security threats.

We often talk about how Russia is conducting hybrid campaigns against NATO every day. A simple example of the kinds of situations we need to be ready for in Estonia: the sabotage of undersea cables in the Baltic Sea. The Navy needs the ability to man its vessels — even using conscripts — so they can maintain a presence at sea.

Right now, our system imposes limits, where the Navy must carry out most tasks using active-duty personnel. That's because our training system has been so long and rigid, leaving us with conscript readiness for maybe 1.5 months per year, as I mentioned.

Which units or conscripts will be placed on active readiness duty? Are we talking about all conscripts — so that anyone entering military service should expect to be assigned to such a position — or is this a task reserved for certain conscripts only?

No, the idea is exactly that — all the young men and women who enter conscription will be assigned a wartime position. Depending on the specific nature of their unit, each conscript will have a clearly defined task, role or position that directly ties them to a mission in the event that something actually happens.

The previous Commander of the Defense Forces, Gen. Martin Herem, often spoke about how Russia has the ability to apply the "boiling the frog" method — ramping up its forces quickly, which then forces Estonia to respond by calling up reserves, only for Russia to suddenly pull back its readiness. In that case, we've already burned through our resources for nothing.

The purpose of the active readiness duty function is to ensure we always have enough immediate force available to respond quickly to completely unpredictable situations — and to buy us time to fully mobilize the reserve forces if needed.

What might these active readiness duty positions look like in Narva, for example? Just to give people a clearer picture — are we talking about border guarding, for instance?

No, guarding the border remains the responsibility of the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA). That's not something we're getting involved in.

What we're talking about is having a unit in Narva that's capable of very quickly blocking an adversary's access to the city, if needed. That's the core idea — being positioned and ready to react decisively in a crisis.

Speaking of the reform of conscription, one part of that is the so-called gap year. Next year, the Defense Forces will be taking in fewer conscripts so that active-duty personnel — who've essentially been managing the conscripts — can undergo training and retraining. From what I understand, this instructor training will be shaped by lessons learned from Ukraine. Does that mean Ukrainians themselves will be conducting some of this training?

We're open to all options. The fact is, in order for us to move forward with the new training system in 2027, we first need to make sure our active-duty personnel are properly trained.

The way conscript training has worked until now has, by necessity, left our active-duty soldiers with very limited opportunities for professional development — to maintain and sharpen their own skills. That, over time, leads to a gradual decline in capability.

We've clearly recognized that we need to bring our active-duty personnel to a level where they understand the realities of modern warfare — what we're seeing from the most recent war experience. Because we're acquiring new weapons systems. We're talking about drones, electronic warfare and reconnaissance tools being deployed at the unit level. All of that means our people need the chance to learn what those systems are, how to use them and what tactical advantages they provide on the battlefield.

In 2026, we'll take in only about 1,000 conscripts because the commander of the Defense Forces has said that all our new capabilities — like HIMARS, CAESAR artillery systems and medium-range air defense — must first be fully trained and integrated. The rest of the forces during that period will be focused largely on ensuring our core security functions, like force protection.

By 2027, we'll return to our normal intake of conscripts, where we'll once again need up to 4,000 conscripts per year.

As for training being shaped by the experience in Ukraine — yes, that's absolutely part of the plan. And we are open to the idea of having Ukrainians involved in that process. Their real-world combat experience is invaluable, and we want to make sure our instructors are learning from the most current and relevant sources available.

If conscripts are going to be trained in a new way and active-duty personnel are also learning how to teach differently, what happens to reservists? Will they also be retrained under this new approach? For example, could this mean additional training sessions for reservists — like teaching them all how to operate drones?

Yes, it absolutely means that we have an obligation to bring our reservists into this new training process as well. For example, in 2026, we're actively looking into how we can include as many reservists as possible in these updated training programs.

That doesn't mean we'll be calling up entire battalions or brigades at once. Rather, it means we'll start bringing in smaller groups for shorter periods. The idea is to refresh their existing skills and teach them the new capabilities or technologies that are now clearly associated with their unit type.

So yes, that could include things like learning to operate drones — whatever new skill sets are relevant for their role.

There's still a lot more we could talk about — from the new capabilities the Estonian Defense Forces is acquiring to the training of future personnel at the Military Academy — but hopefully we can get to those questions another time. In any case, thank you, Chief of the EDF Headquarters, Maj. Gen. Vahur Karus, for joining us today and all the best in your work!

Thank you, and have a meaningful Veterans Day!

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