The German public-law radio station Deutschlandfunk conducted a live interview with journalist Peter Savitsky, who is participating in the "Spring Storm" exercises. He noted that only 2000 allied soldiers are stationed in Estonia and, unlike Lithuania, the country does not have its own air force.
Peter Savitsky, a correspondent for Deutschlandfunk in Eastern Europe, noted that NATO's presence in Lithuania is significantly larger. In particular, a German tank brigade will be stationed in Lithuania, while foreign troops in Estonia are deployed on a rotational basis for only a few months.
"Currently, there are 2000 foreign NATO soldiers in Estonia," Savitsky noted, adding that the airspace over the Baltics is patrolled by allies, as Estonia, for economic reasons among others, does not have its own fighter jets.
Savitsky told German radio listeners that the exercises "Spring Storm" are taking place just 30 kilometers from the Russian border, and one of their goals is to deter possible aggression from Russia. In his assessment, drones, artificial intelligence, and lessons learned from the war in Ukraine play a much greater role in the current exercises than before.
According to Savitsky, at the same time, there are voices among politicians in Estonia who believe that the presence of allies is insufficient and would like to see a larger NATO unit stationed in the country on a permanent basis, similar to Lithuania.
The interview also touched on the rapid development of drone warfare and how NATO is trying to learn lessons from the war in Ukraine. Savitsky described the drone technology center located in Estonia more as a technological workshop than a classic testing ground. He stated that the Estonians themselves acknowledged that both NATO and Estonia still have a long way to go in the field of drone technology — both in terms of developing the technologies themselves and in training specialists.
According to the editorial board of bb.lv, it seems that Estonians are not good at keeping secrets. Fortunately, they did not reveal anything about the Latvian NATO contingent — our Security Service could have detained the talkative journalist.
