How do you comment on the National Audit Office's report, which in simple terms says the Defense Forces cannot prove where their assets are?

First of all, I want to thank the National Audit Office for this audit, which highlighted areas that need improvement. But many of the points raised are more about bookkeeping and accounting issues. I can assure you that the Defense Forces (EDF) has a clear picture of our stockpiles. We know where our equipment is. We know how much of it there is. And we also have an overview of what is due to arrive in the future. So we will resolve these issues, the small but critical points that the audit brought out. We do need to adjust our processes and perhaps even our structures, but from our perspective, this is more of an accounting problem.

The auditor general also stated directly that he is not claiming anything is missing or that any money has been lost. But what does this mean in practice — do you need to hire more accountants or auditors?

I don't rule out that we may need to hire additional auditors or rethink how we set up separate teams for inventories and bring in people for that work. The EDF deals every day with both training and preparing for military defense. Our stockpiles are constantly moving: some items get used, we purchase more and parallel accounting is ongoing all the time. That accounting may not always reach the correct database in real time — it takes some time. This can lead to temporary discrepancies. But again — nothing is missing, as the National Audit Office has also confirmed. The real issue is how we improve our databases. We need to make sure that the exchange of information between databases happens faster and in real time, better than the current system allows.

What does this mean in practice — do you need to submit some kind of documents or does this simply continue as regular accounting until the next audit takes place?

The National Audit Office is doing its job. Their role is to ensure that state resources are being used properly. That process is continuous. Our responsibility is to make the necessary fixes so that in the next audit we won't face the same situation — discrepancies between databases when exchanging information — even though nothing has actually gone missing. This is an ongoing process, and that makes sense, because the EDF is constantly monitoring the state of its stockpiles. We regularly take inventory, not because someone tells us to, but because we need to know precisely what we have and what we need more of. We work with our supplies every day. Very few things just sit in warehouses. Ammunition, for the most part, but even that is used in training live-fire exercises. And we need to know what to order more of and when.

Let me ask about the defense industry park. How satisfied are you with how its development is progressing in Estonia?

Right now there are many things that, frankly, are torpedoing the country's military defense preparedness. Look at the Nursipalu case. Look at how even the construction of our warehouses is being questioned — whether it's legal or necessary. The defense industry park falls into the same category. My position is that we don't have much time to waste on endless disputes. We need to get on with what needs to be done. We need warehouses to store ammunition. We need training areas to ensure our military defense is credible and our soldiers' training is at a high enough level. And we need a defense industry park that can fulfill its role: ensuring that aggression against Estonia is impossible. All of these obstacles slow us down, reduce our capabilities and waste valuable time in what is essentially a race against the clock.

Where is the main bottleneck? Recently there was discussion that Estonian law doesn't allow private companies to manufacture weapons here. I've also heard that the requirements set by the state make it very difficult for defense industry firms to secure bank loans. Where exactly is the stumbling block?

We have defined clearly what is necessary to make our military defense strong enough and credible enough to influence Russia's decision-making. We know what we need. But which laws need to be changed — that is not the Defense Forces commander's domain. The reality today is that despite the fact that a full-scale war has been raging in Europe for four years now, we still haven't gotten our defense industry running at the level where the equipment we need right now, for training, is actually being produced. Hopefully, we won't need it in real combat. But if we continue dragging our feet and hiding behind strange excuses, at some point we will simply be too late.

Can you say anything about this year's Russian military exercise Zapad, which is taking place during the war in Ukraine?

From what we see, there is nothing extraordinary. The activities we expected are taking place. It seems to remain within the framework Russia has very diligently defined and declared. So we don't see any indicators that this is something more than the usual pre-announced, planned exercise. We're not overly worried about Zapad. We keep an eye on it and try to learn how Russia conducts its operations. As you correctly noted, they are conducting a military exercise during wartime. This year, however, it's happening a bit farther away. Usually Zapad has been closer to Estonia than it is this time.

One would like to hope that Russia has less capacity now, since the war is ongoing.

I believe that anyone who observes the confrontation in Ukraine and the forces that are engaged there daily in battle can see that Russia no longer has that much capacity. We need to kill the myth: Russia is not an invincible six-meter-tall giant. It is, in fact, a country that has been brought to its knees, bleeding, now desperately trying to intimidate us. Zapad is part of that — an attempt to convince us it is still strong. But that is not true. We must remain firm and increase pressure on Russia, including economic pressure through sanctions. And most importantly, we must support Ukraine. Russia does not have the strength to conduct large-scale military operations on multiple fronts simultaneously — both a major exercise and a war at the same time. That is quite clear today.

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