Margus Tsahkna, Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the current state of European security

In September 2025, just days after three armed Russian MiG-31 fighter jets penetrated Estonian airspace, Margus Tsahkna, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, spoke at the Harriman Institute. Tsahkna told his Harriman audience he was gratified by the global response to Russia’s incursion, which was condemned by many world leaders during an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

In a follow-up conversation in October with Masha Udensiva-Brenner, Tsahkna took special note of comments by U.S. President Donald Trump, who told a reporter, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, that NATO should consider shooting down Russian jets if they violated Estonian air space again.

“For the first time, Estonians witnessed that we are not alone,” Tsahkna told Udensiva-Brenner. “This kind of language Putin actually understands.”

Here’s more from that conversation.

Udensiva-Brenner: You said during your talk, “unfortunately Putin didn’t wake up Europe, it was President Trump.” What did you mean by that?

Tsahkna: Russia wants to dictate how the [European] security architecture or military architecture will look. And this is something we cannot accept. So why am I saying that Trump woke up Europe? We have this attitude since the Second World War that the U.S. is taking care of us on a military level and defense level. That we, as Europeans, have other problems to solve. But we are one of the richest parts of the world. And President Trump has been very clear that he’s not going to use the U.S. taxpayers’ money for military support for Ukraine anymore. Now, Europe is taking more responsibility. Because of President Trump’s very robust pressure to European partners, we agreed to [spend] 5 percent [of the national GDP] on defense investments this summer. [That figure is an increase from 2 percent.]

Udensiva-Brenner: The U.S. has cut so much foreign aid. How does that affect Estonian security?

Tsahkna: If we’re talking about the Baltic Security Initiative [a U.S. program established in 2020 to increase the defense capabilities of the Baltic states in response to Russian aggression in the region], we saw the Senate decision to include that [in the 2026 fiscal year budget]. So, let’s see what the House will do.

With the last round [of U.S. assistance], we bought HIMARS systems [M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, developed for the U.S. Army in the 1990s] and they were put in place this year. U.S. troops trained us. So, this military cooperation is very useful for us. [Also useful is] the location of U.S. troops in our region—they are helping us to keep the peace. The situation has changed a lot, but I do hope that U.S. troops will remain in the region.◆

Featured photo: Margus Tsahkna. Photo courtesy of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs