Estonia says Russia preparing for confrontation with West
STORY: Estonia says Russia is preparing for a military confrontation with the West - within the next decade.
Its Foreign Intelligence Service said on Tuesday that the assessment was based on Russia's plans to double the number of forces stationed along its border with Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.
This is Kaupo Rosin - chief of the intelligence service.
"We also see that Kremlin is probably anticipating a possible conflict with NATO within the next decade or so, that's from their perspective, without specifying what does it exactly mean, would it be direct military action in Baltic states or somewhere else."
He says right now, Russia doesn't have the manpower, partly because it has to keep troops in Ukraine...
and that NATO and its allies were moving in the right direction to counter the Russian threat.
A growing number of Western officials have warned of a military threat from Russia to countries along the eastern flank of NATO, calling for Europe to get prepared by rearming.
Estonia and the other Baltic States have increased their military spending since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014...
and NATO allies have raised their presence in those countries.
Germany, in its first permanent foreign deployment since World War Two, plans to have 4,800 combat-ready troops in the region by 2027.
Rosin added that unless Western support to Ukraine is sustained or increased, it is unlikely to be able to change the situation on the battlefield.
