The director of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service, Kaupo Rosin, confirmed on the "Esimene stuudio" evening talk show that Russia does not have immediate plans to attack Estonia or any other NATO member. However, he stressed that considerable effort is still needed to ensure long-term security.

"How much the Russian threat spills over to us is, in fact, in our own hands," Rosin said.

"Our analyses are based on information we gather ourselves. We're trying to collect information that is deliberately being hidden from us. We want to understand what they're thinking, what their calculations are, what policies are being developed behind closed doors. From that, we assess the situation," he explained.

Rosin also noted that the Kremlin has repeatedly overestimated its own plans — most notably, in the case of the invasion of Ukraine.

"All the various calculations made in the Kremlin didn't pan out as expected. The backstory is likely that Russia spent decades trying to rot Ukraine from the inside, exploiting high-level corruption to its advantage and saturating the country with its agents. And to a large extent, that strategy was successful. Based on that, they assumed that once Russian forces marched in, the whole society and state would collapse quickly and the path forward would be easy," Rosin said.

Estonia's early warning system

The director said Estonia's early warning systems are very strong because they have to be.

"No one else is spying on our behalf — we are Estonia's intelligence service and we also see ourselves as NATO's intelligence presence in this region. This is our domain and we're responsible for gathering information here," he said.

Rosin said the current security landscape hasn't changed significantly since last year. Russia's aggression against Ukraine continues and most of its resources remain focused on that war. While some military units are trained in the Baltic region, they are ultimately sent to the front in Ukraine.

"At the same time, Russia hasn't abandoned its military reform plans. The ambition to carry them out in the future still stands. It all depends on the resources available. The level of ambition remains very high and in the future, we'll likely see a gradual increase in troop numbers along with continued development of military infrastructure. That remains the plan on Russia's side," Rosin said.

He added that Russia's military has grown even during the war years, making it plausible that the country aims to increase its troop count to 1.5 million.

Economic downturn

The Foreign Intelligence Service's analysis also shows that the Russian economy has clearly entered a downturn. Rosin confirmed that sanctions are having a direct and powerful effect.

"Last year, we predicted that the first impacts on Russia's economy would start to show by the end of 2025 or the beginning of 2026. The main reason for the current economic situation is sanctions. Any sanctions that restrict access to resources are effective. I'm referring specifically to sanctions targeting Russia's finance, banking and monetary sectors — these limit access to global financial markets," Rosin said, adding that Russia is now forced to borrow through complex schemes at extremely high interest rates or to raise funds domestically.

"The second category of highly effective sanctions are those targeting the energy sector — oil, gas, shadow fleets — and limiting revenue flowing into the Russian state budget. At this point, Russia's economy has become highly vulnerable to each new sanctions package. Cracks are beginning to appear and this is a very favorable trajectory for us. My message is: now is exactly the right time to press even harder," he stressed.

Dissent suppressed

Rosin said Russia has tried to portray itself as capable of waging war indefinitely, unaffected by external pressures. In reality, however, the country is in bad shape and dissent is immediately suppressed.

"They have an extremely effective repressive apparatus that silences dissent immediately. We've all heard about Russia's so-called Advent calendar, which means that every time you open a window, someone falls out. It's not a comfortable environment and people are very aware of that. Any small wrinkle that appears in the white tablecloth is quickly ironed out," Rosin said.

The Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service (EFIS) published its 2026 yearbook on Tuesday.

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