“Ukraine will continue to respond to any attacks by Russia and apply its just long-range sanctions,” Zelenskyy declared at a press conference with his Estonian counterpart Alar Karis.
Kiev refers to attacks in the depths of Russia, which is waging a full-scale war against Ukraine for the fifth year, as “long-range sanctions”.
Zelenskyi assumes that the incidents with Ukrainian drones over the Baltics were caused by Russian electronic warfare systems, which could have confused the drones and diverted them from their targets in Russia. At the same time, according to him, Moscow is trying to spoil relations between European allies.
The Ukrainian president expressed his willingness to send Ukrainian experts to European countries to help in the fight against drones. Similarly, Kyiv sent experts to the Middle East in the spring to help counter the threat of drones from Iran.
“It is a quick and effective solution. It worked in the Middle East. We are now ready to do the same to our closest partners in Europe. We can act thanks to the agreement on drones. We are ready to send our expert groups,” said Zelenskyy, according to the Estonian server Delfi.
President Karis emphasized the need to speed up negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU. “Ukraine’s accession represents an opportunity for Europe and the entire Euro-Atlantic space to become stronger,” he said.
“The last months have brought the war closer to us as well. We must strengthen the preparedness of society and the resilience of the whole of Europe and the democratic world,” emphasized Karis, according to whom Estonia and the entire democratic world can learn from Ukraine in terms of experience from the war, from the rapid development of the defense industry and from the functioning of the economy in wartime conditions.
He participated in the summit
A summit of the Baltic and Nordic countries, which support Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression, was held in Tallinn on Tuesday. Representatives of eight Nordic and Baltic countries, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, in a joint statement expressed their support for Ukraine’s “irreversible path” to NATO and Ukraine’s entry into the EU as soon as possible, AFP reported.
The representatives of the eight Nordic and Baltic countries welcomed the progress achieved by Kyiv on the way to European integration, and called for the immediate opening of all negotiation chapters in June-July. According to them, Ukraine’s accession to the EU would be one of the “key security guarantees for Ukraine and Europe”.
On the sidelines of the summit, the new Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs and President Zelenskyi signed an agreement on defense cooperation, which provides Latvia with access to Ukrainian expertise in defense against drone attacks.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who attended the summit via video conference, repeatedly assured of France’s “unceasing commitment” through its military presence in Eastern Europe.
Incidents with drones are becoming more and more frequent, especially in the Baltics. The Ukrainians are attacking, among other things, the Russian Leningrad region, which is adjacent to Estonia. This week on Monday, French Rafale fighter jets stationed in the Baltic states shot down a drone flying over Latvian territory, AFP recalled. At the beginning of May, two drones crashed near the Latvian city of Rezekne, which caused the fall of the Latvian government, the BBC News server recalled.
