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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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Russia has said it will direct its nuclear arsenal toward NATO member Estonia if nuclear weapons are stationed in the Baltic country.
"We do not threaten Estonia, as well as all other European countries, but if there are nuclear weapons aimed at us on the territory of Estonia, then our nuclear weapons will be aimed at the territory of Estonia, and Estonia must clearly understand this," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in remarks reported by Russian state media on Sunday.
Estonia's defense ministry said it does not comment on Kremlin statements. Tallinn's foreign ministry said in a statement it treats nuclear weapons "with full responsibility," adding: "It is Russia that has repeatedly used nuclear threats and rhetoric against others as a tool of pressure."
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But it also downplayed the role of nuclear weapons in the country's defense, saying it was not a "current issue."
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Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna, said on Wednesday Tallinn would be willing to host nuclear weapons on its territory in the future.
There are currently no public plans to move nuclear weapons to Estonian soil and several other European members of NATO have floated changes to where such hardware is stationed on the continent as confidence in the U.S. coming to the alliance's aid with its vast nuclear cache wavers.
Poland, another NATO state on the alliance's eastern border with Russia, could look at developing nuclear defenses of some kind, the country's president said earlier this week.
Former Polish President Andrzej Duda had suggested in 2024 that the country was ready and willing to host American tactical nuclear weapons.
These weapons, sometimes called substrategic or nonstrategic, are designed for use on the battlefield. They have a smaller yield, and would be used against different types of target than strategic nuclear weapons like intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), typically thought of as much more destructive and would target cities if nuclear war broke out.
U.S. tactical nuclear weapons are already based in several European nations, including Germany and Italy. Russia confirmed in 2023 that it had moved tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, its key ally in Europe.
NATO countries near Russia are generally more worried about the prospect of a Moscow attack than alliance members further away from the Kremlin's territory.
"Bringing a nuclear weapon here to our territory—we are not against it," Tsahkna told Estonian broadcaster ETV. "We do not have a doctrine in which we have somehow ruled out, if NATO deems it necessary in accordance with our defense plans, the placement of a nuclear weapon, for example, on our territory."
The U.S. has by far the largest number of nuclear warheads in NATO. Combined, Russia and the U.S. control around 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons.
Besides the U.S., the U.K. and France are the only other nations in NATO with nuclear weapons, albeit significantly smaller stockpiles.
European countries increasingly nodded to discussions about whether European countries could be protected by French and British nuclear weapons.
Estonia hosted Soviet nuclear sites before the fall of the USSR, although it dismantled many of these facilities in the years after the end of the Cold War.
Tallinn has been signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) since 1992. The agreement is designed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, promote disarmament and stop nations gaining their own nuclear capabilities.
Update 2/23/2026 at 10:24 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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