Ministers agree on action plan for integrating British units into Estonian division

Photo: Kaitseministeerium

On the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius, Estonia's Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur and Britain's Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace met bilaterally to discuss the implementation of the new regional plans and to sign a joint declaration outlining the bilateral steps between Estonia and the United Kingdom.

«For Estonia, it is very important that we are moving forward with the integration of the UK brigade into our division. We know exactly which units will come to Estonia and we have a plan for exercises to rehearse reinforcement -- how the brigade allocated to our defense will move to Estonia and how it will operate within the Estonian division,» Pevkur said in a press release, describing this as the realization of a long-term goal for Estonia.

«Our chief of defense has to know exactly which units and what kind of equipment he can count on in wartime,» the minister said.

Additionally, the ministers agreed on the embedding of staff officers into the command of the Estonian division.

«These two main points -- reinforcement exercises and UK officers in the command structure -- are an important part of strengthening Estonia's defense capability and putting the new regional plans into practice. On our part, we will continue the accelerated development of our infrastructure to support both the UK's permanent presence and reinforcements in times of need,» Pevkur said.