New anti-ship missile deal will bolster Finland and Estonia’s coastal defences against Russian warships
The two countries will sign a deal that would potentially sever Moscow’s link with its fleet in the Baltic Sea in case of conflict Estonia and Finland to sign a coastal missile deal which they say would give them control of the Gulf of Finland, potentially severing Moscow's link with its fleet in the Baltic Sea.
The deal would rely on Estonia's new Israeli-Singaporean-built Blue Spear surface-to-sea missiles, which have a range of 180 miles.
Announcing the deal, Hanno Pevkur, Estonia's defense minister, said that the power dynamics of the Baltic region were changing, tipping towards Nato and away from Russia.
“The Baltic Sea will be Nato’s internal sea when Finland and Sweden have joined Nato,” he told the Finnish Iltalehti newspaper. “Compared with today, the situation is changing.”
The Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland hold symbolic and strategic significance for Russians, who regard them as part of their military domain.
Without control of the Gulf of Finland, Russia's naval headquarters in St Petersburg cannot reach its Baltic Sea Fleet by sea.
It would only be able to access it from Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave wedged between Lithuania and Poland that Moscow captured during the Second world war.