DISINFO: Estonia fights with its neighbours for money from US defence budget
SUMMARY
Tallinn is fighting furiously with its competitors – Vilnius and Riga – to get funding from the US for it’s military investment projects. This explains the endless flow of messages about unproven “violations” of Estonian airspace by Russian aircraft. Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation has been constantly disproving the unproven claims of Estonia.
Vilnius and Riga lack such “convenient” islands like Estonias Vaindloo, but they attempt to find ways to accuse Russia in provocations on border. They do it like Estonia does, without providing proof.
RESPONSE
The Baltics don't have to fight for the money from the US defence budget and support their claims with airspace violations. It was Russia, who violated the territorial integrity of Ukraine and Georgia and those examples still work very well. At the 2014 summit in Wales, all of the NATO members agreed to spend 2 percent of their GDPs on the defense by the year 2025. Estonia's defence budget reaches above this mark with spending 2,13 per cent of the GDP on defence. Russian military aircraft frequently violate Estonian airspace. The latest example comes from 23rd of September when a Sukhoi Su-34 fighter violated Estonian airspace near the island of Vaindloo. The plane's transponder was turned off and no flight plan was filed. The aircraft had no radio contact with the Estonian Air Traffic Control. As a result of the incident, Moscow’s ambassador to Estonia was summoned to the Foreign Ministry. Previous examples from September also include Lithuania: "On Sept. 3, NATO air policing fighter jets intercepted two Sukhoi SU-30 aircraft flying from the mainland of the Russian Federation to Kaliningrad. Neither had their onboard transponder on, nor flight plans, nor kept radio contact with the regional air traffic control center. On Sept. 5, fighter jets were scrambled to intercept an aircraft maneuvering in the Lithuanian Flight Information Region (FIR) of the international airspace after flowing in from Kaliningrad. The onboard transponder of the aircraft was off, it did not have a flight plan, and did not maintain radio communication with the regional air traffic control center."