Estonia ready to deploy fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said that his country is ready to provide its territory for the deployment of British F-35A fighters, multi-role aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

This is reported by The Telegraph.

“The door is always open for allies,” Pevkur replied when asked by reporters about the possibility of basing British F-35As in the country. His comment came against the backdrop of the September 19 incident when Russian fighter jets violated Estonian airspace.

The possibility of deploying nuclear-capable aircraft near Russia’s borders is likely to provoke a strong reaction from Moscow, which has repeatedly expressed its intolerance for such NATO moves in the Baltics, calling them a “provocation.”

At the same time, sources in the British defense sector stressed that there is currently no strategic need to redeploy nuclear carriers closer to the Russian border. According to them, the F-35A in Estonia may have a provocative rather than a deterrent effect.

“Placing such systems in the zone of a potential first strike is a high risk. From a deterrent, they could turn into a destabilizing factor,” a source close to British military circles commented.

F-35s are already deployed to Estonia on a rotational basis as part of NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission, which covers Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. A new generation of these aircraft is expected by the end of the decade.

Although there has been no official statement about the deployment of nuclear weapons in Estonia, the very fact of readiness to receive such carriers signals growing strategic tension in the region.

Recall that Estonia has begun a large-scale fortification of its eastern border with Russia, building an anti-tank ditch and planning the construction of hundreds of bunkers . At the same time, the opposition party Isamaa has come up with an initiative to completely close the border with Russia due to security threats growing against the background of military exercises by Russia and Belarus.

As reported, Estonia stated that three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets flew into its airspace without permission and stayed there for 12 minutes . The country’s Foreign Ministry has already summoned the charge d’affaires of the Russian Federation to express a protest and deliver a note regarding the incident that occurred on September 19 over the Gulf of Finland.

The Estonian Ministry of Defense later stated that the incursion of Russian MiG-31 fighters into Estonian airspace on September 19 was deliberate.

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