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By Peter Aitken
Politics Weekend Editor
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Europe must meet the challenges of Russian aggression as a “different kind of war,” Estonian President Alar Karis said during an interview with Newsweek on October 24.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and going-on four-year-long war has neighboring countries concerned. Estonia borders Russia as part of the Baltic states, which also includes Latvia and Lithuania. The country is a little over 400 miles from Moscow and only around 97 miles from St. Petersburg. Over the past few months, Russia has allegedly harassed neighboring countries that are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, most recently flying aircraft over Lithuania and Estonia’s airspace in what has been labeled a blatant breach of sovereignty and international law.
But the lack of any direct military action against those nations has raised questions about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s long-term goals and thinking, which Karis said is merely part of the unconventional way that Russia now wages war.
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Throughout the conflict, Ukraine has relied heavily on NATO assistance, receiving weapons and training on weapons including F-16 fighter planes, while seeking an additional boost with U.S.-produced Tomahawk missiles that would allow it to strike deep into Russia, although the United States has so far resisted that step. President Donald Trump has actively pursued a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, reaching out to both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the weeks following his victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
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But no deal has materialized, and Trump at times over the past few months has mused whether Putin is “tapping me along” and truly seeks peace. Most recently, Trump had agreed to meet with Putin in Budapest, Hungary, in a second face-to-face meeting after their August summit in Alaska, but days later the U.S. said it was called off. Trump, however, continues to seek a peace deal, and he told reporters that he would only meet with Putin again if he was confident he would walk away with a deal, reiterating he would need to see concessions from both Ukraine and Russia.
Newsweek spoke with President Karis at the Permanent Mission of Estonia to the United Nations in New York City. Karis has held his post since 2021, putting him in power before Russia initiated its invasion of Ukraine. The following includes excerpts from the full interview and has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Recently, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump said they were going to meet face-to-face, only for Trump to just days later say he no longer felt good about it. Do you think Trump was right to pursue that face-to-face? And why do you think he was so ready to abandon those plans if he thinks it was so vital?
I spoke to President Trump when I was in the Vatican, and he said we are almost there. It was in April, but now it’s almost November. So there has been, you know, up and down all the time, and you probably, at some point, you are...you get fed up. I mean, how long could this take? Because Putin, we know it already for a long time, Putin doesn’t want peace, that’s for sure, and he doesn’t want to sit behind the table. First of all, it’s very difficult for Putin to reach Budapest, and also this Budapest reminds [us of] something from past, as far as nuclear power is concerned—[when it] was taken away from Ukraine and [instead] given, so to speak, security guarantees [in 1994’s Budapest Memorandum], which didn’t actually happen.
Ukraine was not invaded totally, but still [Russia] started aggression against Ukraine. So, it’s very difficult to predict what’s the next step, but one is sure: First of all, Ukraine wants peace, we want peace, here in the U.S., everybody wants peace, but Putin doesn’t.
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President Trump just made a deal with the Middle East between Israel and Hamas, and he thinks that he can roll that into getting a deal between Russia and Ukraine. Do you think that the situation between Russia and Ukraine is very different from that of Hamas and Israel, and if so, why?
Every conflict is different, but...there are always human lives at stake, especially children and kids and women. I have been in both places actually: I have been to Ukraine right after this escalation in 2022, and I have also been to Palestine and to Israel this year.
Of course, there are similarities, but the historical background is completely different. It’s much, much clearer in the case of Ukraine who is aggressive, who is not, but Israeli and Palestinian history goes way back to...a thousand years, maybe even more, so it’s a difficult situation. But as I said, the humanitarian issue is a similarity on both cases.
Do you have any concerns that Russia might try to influence Estonian elections? And do you have any way to better protect yourself from that kind of influence? Second to that, do you worry about Russia trying to create further breakaway regions, specifically in Estonia, in the same way that it has in Moldova and in Ukraine?
Starting with the second question: First of all, the difference is that Estonia, Finland, Sweden and other countries, which are proximate to Russia, are NATO members. Ukraine is not, Moldova is not, Georgia is not, and so forth: This is basically the main difference. That means that I don’t believe that Russia is going to attack NATO country.
Of course, Putin is testing all the time. We have his drones, we have his drones in Poland, drones in Romania, in Denmark. We have this fighter jet incursion in Estonia. This is a hybrid war. There’s also GPS jamming and so forth. This is what Russia is doing, but I don’t believe that Russia is going to attack NATO countries or any other country in Europe. Still, we have to be prepared to deter, but Russia doesn’t test Article 5 on any country.
So you don’t have any concerns about Russia trying to influence your elections?
We had [an] election last week, local election. Of course, there are some influence, but not direct influences because we have so-called Russian-speaking minority, and they have different maybe understanding, at least in some of them, how we should proceed. But no, not really. We’re also used to cyberattacks, which we had [in] 2007 [for the] first time, so we are, in that sense, also very prepared.
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Do you believe that maybe Russia’s instead trying to create an anxiety around your country, that maybe it would make people second guess about investing in Estonia if they’re worried about a Russian attack?
I think Russia generates the anxiety everywhere, not only...I always [have to] answer this question because I am close to Russia, but the whole [of] Europe is next to Russia. That means it doesn’t really matter. As I said, these drones are already in Denmark and some other places, so we should be all prepared. It’s a different kind of war.
Of course, we have certain experience from the past with Russia...but nevertheless, it’s our concern as a Western world, and this war in Ukraine, it is not only a war against Ukraine, it’s against Europe, it’s against the whole Western world.
Would you say Europe is already at war effectively?
I don’t like to use this term—“in war”—but there are certain elements, of course. You asked the question also about investing. Of course, there might be some companies that were kind of scared to invest in Estonia, but at the same time, recently a company from Canada [made a] more than 100 million euros investment to a magnet factory next to the Russian border, very close to the Russia border.
If we have more of these kinds of investments, others also understand that it’s quite safe to invest. I mean, you see companies also investing to Ukraine, and Ukraine is in war, so business is business. You have to be brave.
President Trump recently criticized Spain over their spending for NATO defense and suggested that they might be dropped if they don’t meet their commitment. Is that something you would support? The idea that if members don’t keep up their commitments, they should be dropped?
I guess we should give some time, and if you look even recently, what happened to Germany—they changed completely the attitude of defense and defense industry and building up military capabilities. It’s probably the same with Spain.
Yes, we put 5 percent, and...it’s not because it is a nice number, but because it [is] in our NATO defense program. That’s why we put 5 percent, and what we can do as a small country is lead as an example. I’m telling my Portugal colleagues and to others that you should also put more on resources. Different countries are in different situations. Things won’t happen overnight.
If you give them, say, five years and they don’t still meet that requirement, do you believe that there should be some form of punishment?
I think these countries and leaders are smart enough to move in the right direction.
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