Plans for protecting civilians were discussed at Question Time of the Riigikogu

At Question Time of the Riigikogu, Minister of Defence Kalle Laanet, Minister of Public Administration Jaak Aab and Minister of the Interior Kristian Jaani replied to the questions of members of the Riigikogu.

Rene Kokk asked Minister of the Interior Kristian Jaani about the plans for protection of the civilian population in Estonia in the event of war.

Jaani admitted that up to now, all threat scenarios had been based on hybrid threats. For example, plans had been made for the situations when it was necessary to evacuate people from one region of Estonia to another. However, in the light of the events in Ukraine it is clear that it is necessary to take into account also war crimes against civilians. The Minister of the Interior said that, for this reason, the Government had decided to contribute 140 million euro to comprehensive national defence. “It will go to building our external border, and to two security packages that involve comprehensive national defence, defence spending as well as non-military needs for development. 140 million in total. So that it can be said that we have really done a lot already,” Jaani emphasised, and pointed out that this allocation of funding would be used, among other things, to increase the mine-clearing and urban search and rescue capabilities, to map shelters and to develop risk communication systems.

“The Rescue Board has started updating the existing national evacuation plan on the basis of new threat scenarios and soon, right now, the internal training plan of the Rescue Board itself on how to train their specialists even better will be ready,” the Minister added. Jaani said that a national crisis training exercise was also planned.

Minister of the Interior Kristian Jaani also replied to Riho Breivel’s question about the activities and subordination relations of the border guards during war and Riina Sikkut’s question about 9 May.

Minister of Defence Kalle Laanet replied to Lauri Läänemets’s question about the salaries of the defenders of the state, Heiki Hepner’s question about defending Estonia, Andres Metsoja’s question about comprehensive national defence, Alar Laneman’s question about developing of new military capabilities and Leo Kunnas’s question about amending the National Defence Development Plan 2022–2031.

Minister of Public Administration Jaak Aab replied to Helir-Valdor Seeder’s question about security, Helle-Moonika Helme’s question about compensating of energy and district heating prices and Paul Puustusmaa’s question about the war in Ukraine, refugees and local government.

Verbatim record of Question Time (in Estonian):

Video recordings of the sittings of the Riigikogu can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/riigikogu.
(Please note that the recording will be uploaded with a delay.)

Source: Parliament of Estonia