Herem says Estonia is not unarmed in drone warfare

Estonian Defence Minister Martin Herem says the country is preparing for threats from drones and is “not completely unarmed” in drone warfare, ERR reported in an interview with its Vikerraadio radio service.

Herem said drones are also shot down with small arms in Ukraine, and Estonian conscripts practise doing the same. He said he had reviewed Estonia’s preparedness for threats at sea, from the air and from the east by land, and had presented plans to the Defence Ministry.

A national defence development plan now being prepared will aim to ensure that Estonia and its allies retain control of connections across the Baltic Sea during a crisis or war, Herem said.

He said the threat from Russia would grow dramatically when it stopped using its current resources in Ukraine. The timing of that change was uncertain, he said, and could be as soon as the day after tomorrow or a year later.

Herem said he wanted people and organisations responsible for essential services to know what threats they could face in a war and what measures could reduce them. He also said he did not want to dismantle work that had been done well by the previous leadership of the defence sector.

A public opinion study published in late September found that 67 percent of Estonian residents were concerned about the possibility of war in Estonia or elsewhere in Europe, an increase of three percentage points.