Estonia’s president keen to keep UK troops amid Ukraine peacekeeping planning
The head of state made his views known as the Prince of Wales visited the Baltic nation.
The Prince of Wales heard the pleas of Estonia’s president for some UK troops to remain in the Baltic state after the statesman suggested they may be redeployed as peacekeepers in Ukraine.
William has flown to Estonia to meet those UK forces at Tapa Army Base providing a deterrent against potential Russian aggression towards the country on Nato’s eastern flank with President Vladimir Putin’s regime.
He sat down for talks with President Alar Karis at the start of a two-day visit to the country where the UK’s largest permanent overseas deployment of around 900 service personnel are based.
Meanwhile, military chiefs from the UK and its allies are meeting in the UK to discuss how a peacekeeping force could operate in Ukraine to deter further Russian attacks if a deal to end the war is reached.
Ahead of the meeting Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard told the BBC that considerations at the discussions included examining how to prevent leaving “Nato exposed” if a “military asset” was moved from one location to another.
William spent around 35 minutes with the president at his official office in the capital Tallinn and at the start of the meeting the statesman thanked the prince for the presence of the UK troops at the military base.
He said: “With British troops at Tapa we really, we really appreciate it.”
The prince’s trip is being made predominately in his role as Colonel-in-Chief of the Mercian Regiment, and on Friday he will meet soldiers from his regiment taking over Nato defence duties in Estonia from The Royal Dragoon Guard.
The president appeared to misspeak when he mentioned the UK’s Defence Minister and not the Armed Forces Minister who had commented on Nato earlier, when he told William: “This morning the Defence Minister said he’d probably send some troops to Ukraine.
“Hopefully some of these troops will stay also.”
Mr Pollard commenting on the gathering of the military leaders from the “coalition of the willing” told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme they would be considering: “If one nation offers fast jet combat air, like a Typhoon aircraft, for instance, how will the other nations work alongside it? Where will it refuel?
“How will it operate with other nations’ capabilities.
“It’s that type of planning that we’re doing today to make sure that any force in or around Ukraine can be as credible as possible…”
He went on to say: “If a deployment means moving a military asset or capability that’s already deployed, how can we backfill those commitments to make sure that we’re not simply moving all our available resources into one location and leaving other flanks of Nato exposed – that’s why this planning is so important today.”
