Kusti Salm, permanent secretary for the Estonian Ministry of Defense, said Nato forces needed to ramp up their presence in the Baltic States to warn Russian President Vladimir Putin against further invading Europe. Calling Russia “a historic-level murderer”, Mr Salm told reporters at a press conference in Tallinn, the country’s capital, that the threat from the Russian Federation was now “as clear as anything can be”. “There’s not enough words of thank you for Britain. Britain has definitely done a lot, so we are extremely grateful,” he said. “There has been no hesitation in its commitment to the allied principles. But everyone can always do more. “We need to make sure that the deterrent message the allied forces are sending to Russia is that they should not even have a thought about invading Nato or attacking Nato.” Since the war in Ukraine began, Britain has doubled the number of soldiers it has based in Estonia as part of the Nato Enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) in the country, bringing the total to 1,650.
