State Defence Investment Centre still lacks ammunition procurement correspondence

Estonia’s State Defence Investment Centre still cannot access private correspondence linked to ammunition procurements, ERR reported after the agency briefed parliamentary committees on Wednesday.

The parliament’s Anti Corruption Select Committee and State Budget Control Select Committee reviewed documents related to the preparation, approval and implementation of contracts signed with Datasel.

State Defence Investment Centre Director General Elmar Vaher, Defence Ministry Deputy Secretary General Kadri Peeters and Sorainen attorney Maria Pihlak gave an evening briefing on the meetings.

Vaher said the committees were shown documents explaining decisions made in 2024 and 2025 concerning assistance to Ukraine. The documents totalled about 5,000 pages.

The centre still does not have private messages exchanged by former employees with former Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur and former Defence Ministry Secretary General Kaimo Kuusk. Vaher said that, to his knowledge, Kuusk had told him he submitted the conversations to the Estonian Internal Security Service.

The centre has also not reviewed the emails of people who worked there when the ammunition deals were concluded. “It is a very large amount of work, and we are considering whether it is necessary at all and whether it would bring clarity,” Vaher said.

Vaher said the most important materials that can be shown to lawmakers are the minutes of decision making meetings and memorandums prepared before the decisions. He also cited on site inspections by centre employees and expert materials that could establish that the goods supplied by Datasel were not of adequate quality.

“We are cooperating fully with the National Audit Office, and we are showing parliamentarians all the material we have,” Vaher said.

There has been no significant progress in the legal dispute, Pihlak said. One party has submitted its position in response to the State Defence Investment Centre’s claim, and the lawyers are currently reviewing it, she said.

An arbitrator has been appointed in the arbitration proceedings. “We are waiting for a schedule to be agreed under which we will resolve this dispute,” Pihlak said.

Peeters stressed that about 70 million euros paid as an advance for ammunition that the state has not received has not disappeared or been taken from Estonian taxpayers. She said the money was intended for Ukraine and came from interest income on frozen Russian assets.

Peeters and Vaher both said that advance payments are standard practice in such procurements.

Peeters said the priority was to establish what happened and how to change the system so that the scale of such risks is clearly known before they are taken, including who decides to take them, how they are monitored and what would cover the loss if a risk materialises.

“We are doing this as openly as possible and in close cooperation with parliament, and I think today here confirms that,” Peeters said.