European leaders should be prepared to send troops to seal the Russia-Ukraine peace deal brokered by US President-elect Donald Trump, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Chakna said.
Tsahkna said Kiev’s membership in NATO would be the best security guarantee, but deploying troops to Ukraine to ensure an agreement could be the next best option.
“If we are talking about real security guarantees, which means there will be a just peace, then we are talking about joining NATO,” Tsahkna said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Tuesday.
“But it’s impossible without the United States. And we’re talking about some form of (guarantee) in the sense of boots on the ground,” he said.
During his presidential campaign, Trump threatened to withdraw from the military alliance if European member states did not increase their defense spending.
He also promised to reach a quick peace deal after taking office in January, raising concerns that the agreement would be unfair to Kiev.
Estonia’s foreign minister said he did not believe Trump would actually withdraw from NATO because it would not be in Estonia’s interest to leave Europe to Russia.
But Europeans will need to up their game when it comes to defense spending, and other countries have been urged to follow Estonia’s example by raising taxes to fund more defense spending.
Estonia, one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters, spends 3.4% of its gross domestic product on defense, the second highest in the transatlantic military alliance after Poland.
“We cannot wait for whatever the United States decides,” Tsahkna said.
