00:00Let's head back to the NATO summit in Ankara. Bloomberg Chief European Correspondent Oliver Crook is there with Estonia's Prime
00:05Minister. Oliver.
00:09Yeah, that's right, Danny. I mean, there's so much news to parse, and we're very lucky to be able to
00:12do so with one of the prime ministers and the leaders that was in the room there with the NATO
00:16allies, and also one of the nations that borders Russia, and of course one of the nations that is spending
00:20the most in NATO in terms of the proportion of GDP.
00:22It's the Estonian Prime Minister, Kristin Minkal, who joins us now, just fresh from those meetings, fresh from the comments
00:28from Donald Trump.
00:28I'd just like to get your general impression to begin with after this meeting that you left just there with
00:32the president of the United States, 30 other leaders from NATO, including yourself.
00:36What is your impression from the meeting?
00:37I would say the pressures are quite positive because, as Donald Trump said in his concluding remarks, that he almost
00:46regrets that there were no cameras inside because all the European countries were saying,
00:52as we agreed in The Hague, that they will invest more in defense, and the burden sharing with America will
00:58be there, and also that we are also this kind of security suppliers to each other.
01:04So Iran was mentioned, Ukraine was mentioned a lot, Russia's threat was mentioned a lot.
01:08So overall, the summit was positive.
01:11And thinking also about, because going into that meeting, we heard a lot of negatives commentary from the president of
01:16the United States.
01:16It sounds like he was much more positive in the room, and that there's a sort of understanding between the
01:21Europeans and the Americans.
01:22Do you think that that is fair to say?
01:24I would say that that's fair to say, because it also might be that Donald Trump was all the time
01:29there, listening to all the speeches, reacting to them, and giving the feedback if needed.
01:35And I would say that the message from the European side was also quite clear on the NATO members' side,
01:40that we heard what was agreed in Hague, and we are delivering.
01:45So, for example, my country, as you said, we are the highest spenders, or among the highest spenders.
01:51He mentioned us at the opening speeches, Stonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, that we are already delivering more than 5%.
01:58And we've also heard comments from the president of the United States on the question of Iran, saying that he
02:01will probably strike Iran again, that he considers the ceasefire basically over at this point.
02:06Can you give us a little bit of the sort of texture of the conversation around Iran?
02:10Is there a pressure from the president of the United States to have NATO allies more included, as we've heard
02:14from him over the last couple of weeks?
02:17I would say that the inside the room, and also publicly has been said, and my position is also that
02:24Iran must not have nuclear weapons.
02:27That's quite clear.
02:27And in that we support President Trump and America's position.
02:31Also, everybody was quite happy about this kind of de-escalation and this kind of agreement, which brought the prices
02:37down, inflation down, and risks down.
02:40But said that, we are also willing to contribute, and probably most of the members in NATO are willing to
02:47contribute to free passage in Hormuz, whatever that then means.
02:52Hopefully, things will go back to the road they were to de-escalate the situation.
02:58And something that we just heard from the president of the United States sitting alongside President Zelensky,
03:02and this is a massive piece of news for the Ukrainians that he's going to give licensing an agreement to
03:07build Patriot missiles domestically within Ukraine.
03:10I'd like just first your reaction to that and how significant you see that in the context of this war.
03:14That is, as you said, that is very significant.
03:16That is very significant because when you look at the situation in Ukraine, you see that Ukraine is asking and
03:24everybody is providing as much as they can,
03:26but they need Patriot systems and different kind of anti-ballistic systems.
03:31So, the message coming from the president of the United States that he's willing to consider giving Patriot licenses to
03:41Ukraine, that is huge.
03:43And it seems that he's also open to giving licenses beyond Ukraine to other European nations.
03:47If that were something that is on the table, is that something that Estonia would fly for to build those
03:52Patriot systems within your country?
03:54We probably would talk through with different members of NATO because we are enlarging our defense industry.
04:03It's private sector based.
04:06So, if there's interest or co-production interest, we probably would look into it.
04:10And thinking about the conversation you've had in there about Russia, we've heard from the president of the United States
04:14saying that he's been speaking a lot to Vladimir Putin.
04:17He says that he thinks that Russia's conditions for ending the war are changing.
04:21What is your impression of now the president's stance and also the conditions of the war at this stage?
04:26I would say that that's also a very significant change because, as you know, Putin has been the master of
04:33this kind of cognitive warfare
04:35because he had everybody to believe that his army was the strongest and he will be in Kiev in three
04:40days.
04:41And Zelensky will be fleeing and losing and so on.
04:44This has not happened.
04:46It's 50 years.
04:46And Putin is losing 30 to 35 thousand of his own.
04:50This is unimaginable number and tragedy.
04:53And if that's visible and everybody understands that Russia has already problems in periphery,
05:00but also in metropolis with fuel, demographic problems,
05:04also switching off different kind of 5G, 4G connections, telegrams, so on.
05:09That means Putin is paranoid and there's no healthy part in economy anymore.
05:13So that means if the perception will go all over the world, we will pressure more Russia.
05:18And there is, of course, a side of that that is an advantage for Ukraine potentially in negotiations,
05:22but there is also a side of that with Putin under pressure that makes Russia a little bit more dangerous.
05:26As a nation that neighbors Russia, we heard from the prime minister of Poland a couple of days ago
05:31saying that this is going to be a really sort of difficult period over the next couple of weeks
05:34and it's going to be a real test for the Baltic nations and yourself.
05:37Are you preparing for something new from Russia?
05:39How are you viewing the threat at this point?
05:41I would say that there's no, this kind of acute new threat coming from Russia.
05:46But as you said, the signal is coming from that side that Putin is cornered
05:51and he's getting more paranoid and he's losing face in Ukrainian war, also inside Russia.
05:57People are pressuring him and he's not so popular anymore.
06:00So that is the kind of layer that everybody understands that he will do something.
06:05And everybody's asking what is that he will do.
06:08And the theme of this meeting has really been about burden sharing.
06:11That's been the theme of the last two months among NATO.
06:13You see the 5% clear pin on your jacket.
06:15But there's also another burden that is being shared and that is the support for Ukraine within Europe.
06:20The Baltic nations, the Scandinavians, we've had comments that they're sharing a lot of the burden.
06:25Does that need to be more evenly distributed across European nations and how do you get the other nations to
06:30pay?
06:32I would say the answer probably would be yes, if possible.
06:35That the most, this kind of illustrative argument usually is that when you look at Russia,
06:43you have more men under the arms than at the start of the war.
06:46And when the war would pause, end, whatever would happen, they will distribute equally to Europe.
06:52To Europe, Asia, Africa and so on.
06:54How many of these guys do you want to earn a home?
06:57So if you don't want those guys, ramp up your security support Ukraine or fight against Russia.
Comments