West must stop fearing what will happen to russia and provide military assistance to Ukraine on a much larger scale if we want sustainable peace in Europe – Estonian MP

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The inconsistency between the amount of Western military assistance to Ukraine and the assigned combat missions is explained by the lack of understanding of the importance of the outcome of the war not only for Ukraine but also for the entire international legal order, Marko Mihkelson, head of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Estonian Parliament, said in an interview with ghall.com.ua.

“This issue [the inconsistency between the amount of Western military assistance to Ukraine and the assigned combat missions] is probably the most important of all today. Since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, I have been on the front lines in Ukraine more than once. Since 2014, I have visited the contact line many times and all these years, this issue has been on the agenda, as you say – the inconsistency between the available weapons and the intensity of hostilities and the need to achieve the set goals, the goal of winning the war. Much more is needed to achieve these goals. And all Ukrainian military personnel talk about this, wherever I go, for example, in August of this year in Lyman, or in the Bakhmut district, in Orikhiv. There is also [in addition to the amount of assistance] the question of the “age” of the weapons that were provided to Ukraine,” the politician said.

“Now we need to answer this question, why the West does not provide military assistance to Ukraine in the required volumes, when instead of sending dozens of tanks, thousands are needed, when we need to wait until political decisions are made regarding fourth-generation aviation or long-range artillery such as ATACMS, or something else. I think this is due to the lack of clarity regarding the strategic goals of Western countries regarding russia. In the international arena, I criticized and stated that the West still does not have sufficient awareness of how strategically important this war is, not only for Ukraine and its territorial integrity but also for the entire international legal order,” he said.

“If we want to achieve sustainable peace in Ukraine and Europe, we must provide military assistance on a much larger scale. At the same time, we have advanced much further than we were at the beginning of the war, or even a year ago, if we talk about the position of Germany and other countries. Also, this issue partially concerns production capabilities in the West, in order not only to help Ukraine but also to replenish their own reserves, because many believed that conventional war was in the past and acted accordingly […],” Mihkelson said.

“Let’s go back to August 1991 and President Bush’s speech in the Ukrainian parliament three months before the coup in moscow. The US President called on Ukraine not to “rock the boat.” I think the basis for this is an erroneous understanding of the issue of strategic stability, including the issue of nuclear arms control. But three weeks later what happened happened – the collapse of the USSR and nothing happened with nuclear weapons.

Today, we have a similar situation, this is not about russia or even about nuclear arms control, what is happening is about the entire world legal order, this is about the territorial integrity of Ukraine. It is absolutely unacceptable when in the modern world a member of the UN Security Council carries out aggression and occupies territories. We need to think not so much about what will happen to russia if Ukraine raises the flag over Sevastopol, but most importantly, about the people who are in terrible conditions, under occupation, so that they are freed. These are completely different questions, and this is why we so strongly call for Ukraine to be accepted into NATO as soon as possible,” Mihkelson stressed.

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