Estlands Befürchtungen nach der Kürzung der britischen Truppenzahlen in Großbritannien

Britain has reduced its military footprint in Estonia by hundreds of troops and to fewer than ten tanks despite pledging to increase it to tackle the rising threat from Russia, The Times can disclose.

The military’s financial problems are deemed by allies to be so severe that the UK is struggling to meet its commitments to Nato’s eastern flank, a former commander of the Estonian defence forces has claimed.

Riho Terras, now an MEP, told Times Radio that the UK appeared unable to put together a brigade-sized force, typically around 3,000 to 5,000 troops, for an exercise in the spring and it concerned him the UK and others were not “taking seriously our defence”.

Asked if this was worrying, he said: “Of course it concerns me that we are not taking seriously our defence.“The UK is not coming with the full power to the exercises because they have problems with the financing,” he added.

Separately, defence sources said that the UK has about 1,000 British troops in Estonia — a reduction of 650 troops since April 2022, when there were 1,650 personnel in Estonia. One local source also confirmed there were fewer than ten British Challenger tanks in the country, in addition to other armoured vehicles.

In June 2022, at the Nato summit in Madrid, Ben Wallace, then the defence secretary, said that an extra 1,000 UK soldiers would be committed to Estonia to create a brigade-sized force of about 2,650 troops.

However, instead of sending more troops to Estonia since then, the MoD has reduced its footprint in the country and its Nato commitment to about 1,000 troops, back to how it was before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Terras’s comments will raise questions as to how the UK would be able to contribute any significant troops to a peacekeeping force in Ukraine should a peace deal be agreed.

Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, said last week that if the UK deployed a 5,000-strong force to Ukraine for the long term then it would probably have an impact on its Nato commitments.

Defence spending is rising, following the chancellor’s spring statement yesterday.

As always the british defence budget continues to grow you’re looking at 80+ billion a year by the end of the decade, but manpower and equipment never seems to improve. As a Brit I’ve no idea what we do with that money other than piss it all over some financial black hole wall.