Today 25 October, Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu met with the Foreign Minister of France Catherine Colonna in Tallinn. The meeting concentrated on further options for supporting Ukraine and developing bilateral cooperation.
Reinsalu noted that Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has continued for eight months now and the West must jointly continue all efforts to help Ukraine fight for the freedom of its country and people. “We must do everything to make sure Ukraine wins this war. Right now it is crucial for the West to send intermediate and long-range air defence systems and missiles to Ukraine to protect Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure from systematic destruction,” Reinsalu said.
The foreign minister emphasised that Russia is using military escalation and nuclear threats in an attempt to break the West’s support, which is why we must continue pressuring Russia in every way. “It is important for the European Union to move forward with the ninth sanctions package, expand restrictive measures against the Belarusian regime that is complicit in Russia’s aggression and impose a price cap on oil to hinder the financing of Russia’s war machine. Estonia also strongly advocates for establishing an international special tribunal to give a legal assessment to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and holding the perpetrators of the crimes committed in Ukraine to account,” the foreign minister said.
The foreign ministers also spoke about developing defence cooperation between Estonia and France. “We highly appreciate France’s participation in the NATO battle group in Estonia and the Air Policing mission in Ämari, which contributes to the security of Estonia and the whole region. I also recognised my colleague for France’s support to giving Ukraine EU candidate status,” Reinsalu said. He also reaffirmed Estonia’s continued support to the decision of NATO’s 2008 Bucharest summit on Ukraine becoming a NATO member.
Today the foreign ministers also made a joint visit to the Maarjamäe memorial and Tapa, where they met the French contingent.
Photos (the album is updated throughout the day): https://www.flickr.com/photos/estonian-foreign-ministry/albums/72177720303152211
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