Obama in Talinn

Urmas Paet has been Estonia's foreign minister since 2005.

DW: With the crisis in Ukraine escalating every day, President Barack Obama's visit to Estonia is timely and a strong sign of US support, especially for NATO's Eastern members like the Baltic countries. But what does Estonia expect concretely from Obama beyond his symbolic message of support?

Urmas Paet: First, as you say, Obama's visit to Estonia one day before the NATO summit sends a very clear message. Second, politically it is also very important that the outcome of President Obama's visit, but also of the NATO summit, is a clear commitment that the security level of all NATO member states is the same and that geography or history do not play any role. And third, of course some concrete steps are needed.

We already had some very positive and adequate developments in our region during the last months, for example Estonia's airfield of Ämari is now an integral part of NATO's air policing mission in the Baltic states. And we also have some more American troops on the ground and NATO ships in the Baltic Sea and military exercises. But of course we would like to see that the decision will be made that everything that already happened will remain as it is and we would also like to see some additional measures. But it is of course technically up to NATO's military command to propose and to decide.

One of the additional measures you mentioned is the establishment of a rapid reaction force to be stationed in Eastern Europe which will likely be approved at the upcoming NATO summit.

Yes, this is one of the concrete ideas and of course I really hope that this will be decided.

But Eastern European NATO members have also pushed for the establishment of permanent NATO military bases in the region. German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported over the weekend that five new bases would be set up in Eastern Europe, including one in Estonia. Can you confirm that?

I can't yet, because it is ultimately up to all the NATO allies and the NATO summit to decide what exactly will be there formation. It's three days too early to tell.

But you are hopeful that this will happen?

As I mentioned we already have here 150 American troops on the ground. And we would of course like to see that this permanent presence of NATO allies continues. How exactly we will call this presence we can decide, but the most important thing is the lasting and permanent presence of other NATO allies here because it plays of course a symbolically political, but also a practical role.

Meanwhile, the head of the German parliament's foreign affairs committee has warned of an overly tough response to Moscow's behavior in Ukraine. While he supports a rapid reaction force, he rejects additional measures saying Russia is not a threat to a NATO country. What is your response?

I will not respond to this directly. I guess it is clear that no one wanted to see that in the 21st century in Europe it is possible that one country invades another and tries to change the borders by force. But this is what we already saw this year in Ukraine and in Russian-Ukrainian relations. So we should not forget that for example Crimea has been annexed and occupied. And it is clear that all this tremendously changes the security environment in Europe.

With the Russian invasion in Ukraine we can see that for Russia the 1975 Helsinki final act (declaration between Warsaw Pact states and the West stipulating the inviolability of borders and peaceful settlement of conflicts - the ed.) is not important any longer. We can see that the principles established in the NATO-Russia agreement from 1997 (the so-called founding act on mutual relations, cooperation and security - the ed.) are not important any longer for Russia as well. And all these events in Ukraine anyway have direct implications and influence for many international legal instruments and documents. That's why I am saying it is obvious that the threat environment, because of the Russian activities in Ukraine, has been changed.

You mentioned the NATO-Russian agreement. In light of Moscow's actions in Ukraine, do you think the document, which governs relations between the two parties, should be amended?

De facto anyway, since tremendous damage has already been done and this document speaks about unchanged European security environment and conditions. But it is clear that this security environment has been changed. De jure nobody announced that they are not part of this agreement any longer. But I think that it is always more important to look at real events and real activities and not to believe so much what one conflict party is saying. We also remember when the Russians said that they had nothing to do with events in Crimea and a few days later they decorated Russian military officials who were responsible for what happened in Crimea.

The EU has vowed to implement additional stronger sanctions vis-à-vis Russia and, according to a media report, Britain will propose cutting off Moscow from the SWIFT international financial data transfer system. Would you support such a move that would be really crippling for the Russian economy?

We support the end of this war. We support the end of the conflict in Ukraine. And unfortunately also saw that politics and diplomacy so far did not make any difference. And so far also sanctions did not have the influence we hope to see. So actually I don't see any other option than to move forward with measures and sanctions to stop Russia's activities in Ukraine. But of course I am also not sure that even possible new sanctions will immediately influence Russia to stop its activities in Ukraine, but there is no stronger or better option than this.

Do you think the West has any tool left in its arsenal to try to influence Russia's behavior?

The only way is to try to do it economically. And of course in this regard the only powerful influence can be in the areas which contribute the lion's share to Russia's revenues (the energy sector - the ed).