Starting next year, only conscripts with at least a B1 level of Estonian language proficiency will be called up for compulsory military service. Judging by social media, this news has sparked quite a bit of reaction. What's behind this decision?

I won't comment on the public reaction. From the perspective of the Defense Forces, I can say that our training is very intensive right from the start. If we consider a young person entering service at age 18 with, say, A2-level Estonian, that might be enough to buy something at a store, but not to understand the information and training we begin providing from day one. It's a problem for the Defense Forces when soldiers arrive who do not understand instructions, orders or the content of the training.

Could you give some direct examples of this? You've worked with such soldiers during training, haven't you?

With non-Estonian-speaking soldiers who don't know the language, the first issue is that all necessary information has to be explained to them using hand gestures, body language and facial expressions. But it's also a burden on other Russian-speaking soldiers who have mastered Estonian very well. They're put in a position where they constantly have to translate what's going on for their fellow conscripts.

In other words, those Russian-speaking soldiers who learned Estonian well at school are put in a situation where they can't fully focus on the intensive training they're supposed to be getting in the Defense Forces because they have to act as interpreters for others.

There's also this hope that a soldier who comes into the military without knowing Estonian will quickly pick it up. Of course, it's faster than learning the language in a vacuum, but it still means that part of the training gets lost, because the soldier is still learning the language.

In those first two or three months, while the soldier is acquiring the language, they only absorb about a third of the necessary training content. At the same time, our training is reaching a point where it's absolutely critical that, for example, a person in a shooting range fully understands exactly what they're supposed to do.

This is a problem that really shouldn't exist in the Republic of Estonia, since by the end of basic school, students should be able to achieve at least B1-level proficiency in Estonian as a second language. Based on your actual experience, are there more young people in recent years who don't understand a word of Estonian or has that number stayed more or less the same?

From the perspective of the Defense Forces, it's very difficult to comment on the overall trend. That's because conscripts don't usually enter service in a way that shows a clear pattern where you could say language proficiency is going up or going down.

If we look at the years 2023, 2022 and 2021, the percentage [of conscripts with insufficient Estonian] varied between 10 and 15 percent depending on the unit and the specific call-up round. That's already a problem for the Defense Forces. If that percentage starts to reach around 20 percent — as it has in some call-ups — then it becomes a major factor that significantly disrupts training.

What happens to those people who aren't called up for military service because of their language skills or lack thereof?

That's a question for the Estonian Defense Resources Agency, since they're the authority responsible for conscripts. The Defense Forces mainly deal with active-duty conscripts and reservists.

But as the law states, they remain in the reserve. They're called in again every year to assess whether they've gained the necessary knowledge. Until the age of 27, they hold the status of "conscripts" and after that, they're classified as "untrained reserve." In other words, they're reservists who haven't had the opportunity to acquire military skills.

If the president signs this change into law, we'll end up with yet another group of people who, although they are Estonian residents, could say that Estonia doesn't want them in its Defense Forces, that they lack the will to defend the country and we can't really know where their loyalties lie.

From the Defense Forces' side, I can only repeat the message that when a person's language proficiency is low, their training becomes significantly less effective. And that inefficiency also disrupts the effective training of others.

From the perspective of the Defense Forces and the Estonian state, our ongoing goal is to ensure that all the resources entrusted to us are, figuratively speaking, directly used to build defense capability. In other words, we aim to achieve the best training outcomes with people who are suited for the task and who can actually understand the training they receive.

So the comparison some people have made — that back in the day, you could spend two years in the Soviet Army and come out speaking the language well — isn't realistic today, given the current situation and the fact that we truly need every person to receive effective training?

Absolutely. And on top of that, even though there are people who believe the Soviet Army's training methods were effective, I'm convinced that you simply can't teach the skills and knowledge required in today's Estonian Defense Forces to someone who doesn't understand the language.

Also, as many will remember, in the Soviet Army, those who didn't speak the language inevitably ended up in lower-level roles that didn't make use of their abilities.

Coming back for a moment to what happens to these individuals, you mentioned the term "untrained reserve." What does that mean in broad terms? That if things really go south, they'll be handed a rifle and sent into the woods, but won't actually know what to do?

We don't hand rifles to anyone who hasn't received the proper training. What it means is that, in such a scenario, they would begin an even more intensive training process.

So all those who, as of 2025, barely speak Estonian and were hoping to learn it during military service, are they now out of luck?

Unfortunately, yes. I do sincerely hope, however, that they take the opportunity to learn Estonian outside of the Defense Forces.

As the Defense Forces, we've made an effort by creating a textbook called "Survival Language for Conscripts," which teaches key terminology and helps those with limited Estonian skills grasp the language they need to manage in military service.

As far as I know, schools and national defense instructors have been informed about this textbook and I see it as part of a broader societal effort — helping young men and women who don't yet have sufficient Estonian skills to reach a level where they can acquire the language successfully.

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