Estonian Prime Minister: NATO instructors are already in Ukraine
20 May 2024 13:20
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has said that some NATO member states have already sent their instructors to Ukraine to train Ukrainian military personnel. She told the Financial Times about this, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports
“There are countries that are already training soldiers on the ground,”
– she said, referring to the fact that NATO instructors are in Ukraine.
She added that the decision to send instructors was a sovereign decision of each state, made under its own responsibility. The prime minister is also confident that such actions do not pose a threat of NATO’s involvement in a direct confrontation with Russia. Even if these instructors were to suffer from Russian strikes, she said, this would not automatically trigger Article 5.
“I can’t imagine that if someone gets hurt there, those who sent them will say ‘this is Article 5, let’s bomb Russia’. That’s not how it works, it doesn’t happen automatically. So these fears are unfounded,”
– kaja Kallas said.
She is convinced that such actions are acceptable and they do not provoke Russia at all, because it does not need a reason to attack.
“Russian propaganda does nothing but talk about a war with NATO, so they don’t need a reason to do so. Whatever we do on our part, if they want to attack, they will attack,”
– the Prime Minister believes.
That is why Estonia is also debating whether to send instructors to Ukraine. No such decision has been made so far, but Kaja Kallas does not rule out that it may be made in the future.
