U.S. troops have been stationed in Estonia on a rotating basis under a bilateral agreement since 2022. But earlier this week, ERR reported that only 100 of the 500-700 US soldiers previously deployed in Estonia remain.

The long-term outlook is uncertain after Washington launched a six-month review to scrutinize troops, bases and access rights in Europe.  

Pevkur told ERR on Wednesday that the unit will arrive in the coming months, following discussions with Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) Alexus G. Grynkewich and U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in Turkey.

"The U.S. rotational presence in Estonia will continue. The new rotation will arrive during the summer. As for the longer-term outlook, that will be determined after the six-month review," Pevkur told ERR.

The minister said he hoped to meet with Hegseth again bilaterally in the autumn.

"Whether that happens depends primarily on his schedule, and of course the U.S. has midterm elections coming up. But the indication from both sides was that we would try to arrange such a bilateral meeting so that we could go over both the threat assessment and Estonia's more detailed plans," he said.

Pevkur added that SACEUR's message was that they are trying to view NATO's eastern flank as a whole.

"That also concerns Lithuania, Romania and Poland. It concerns Latvia to a somewhat lesser extent, because there are no ground force components in Latvia, only the helicopter unit that arrived there in July," he said.

The minister could not yet say how the U.S. presence would continue after the six-month force review.

"Once the political decision has been made, whether it will immediately translate into action within a month and involve moving those units, only time will tell. Naturally, our interest is to ensure there is no gap in the U.S. presence in Estonia," Pevkur said.

The minister said the reason behind this was that the force review was the reason for the gap in the rotation, similarly to in Lithuania and Poland.

"As the previous rotation was leaving and the new one was preparing to arrive, it coincided exactly with the moment when the Pentagon announced the six-month review. Everything was then put on hold, which meant there was a need to clarify exactly which unit would be deployed and what would ultimately happen. We have now agreed that the rotations will continue, and at least for the duration of the review there is clarity. Once the review is completed, there should also be clarity for the longer term," Pevkur said.

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