The commander of the Estonian armed forces called for doubling defense spending

Photo: Jens Stoltenberg and the commander of the Estonian Defense Forces, General Martin Herem

The commander of the Estonian armed forces, General Martin Herem, said on Thursday that the country needs to double defense spending within two years. As Herem explained, this is necessary in order to have enough ammunition to inflict a decisive defeat on the Russian invading forces if necessary, reports Reuters.

General Herem said that neither the threat of a nuclear response nor the prospect of significant casualties will not scare off Vladimir Putin if he decides to attack Estonia, in which case it will be necessary to quickly push back his troops.

"If someone suddenly turns up on our border, then a decisive victory should come very quickly: not in months and years, but in days and weeks,”– said Herem.

The head of the Estonian armed forces stated this in an interview he gave while in Japan. (General Herem met with representatives of the defense department of this country.)

"If we really believe that this can happen in three years, then we must make a decision today", &ndash ; Herem said.

According to him, he discussed with representatives of the Japanese Ministry of Defense the possibility of acquiring components that could help Estonia produce defense products at lower costs.

Estonia has increased its defense budget up to approximately 3% of gross domestic product. This happened after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.

BAGNET recalls that last month NATO's Foreign Intelligence Service said Russia was preparing for a military confrontation with the West over the next decade and intends to double the number of troops stationed on the border with the Baltic countries and Finland.

Prepared by: Sergey Daga