Estonia To Authorise Military To Destroy Suspicious Vessels

• 8.04.2025, 10:52

However, there is a nuance.

The Estonian Parliament wants to allow the Defence Forces and the Navy to use military force against merchant ships. However, there is a nuance.

This is reported by ERR.

As the publication writes, the permission to use military force can be used to merchant ships that are suspected of intending to damage submarine cables and other infrastructure facilities. Estonian authorities will consider the relevant bill at a meeting on 9 April.

‘As a last resort, the military will have the right to destroy the suspicious vessel that is not obeying their orders,’ the publication writes.

The purpose of such changes is to allow the military to prevent incidents such as foreign merchant ships deliberately severing sea cables and damaging other infrastructure. After all, the number of such incidents has increased recently.

At the same time, defence commission chairman Kalev Stoicescu said that passing the law and destroying a ship is an extraordinary measure that will only be used ‘in very extreme conditions, when many people have to be saved to prevent a catastrophe’.

‘If the Navy and the Defence Forces are going to apply this law, they must have both diplomatic justification and appropriate means, i.e. ships, weapons, and legislative and diplomatic support,’ former Navy commander Jüri Sasca told the newspaper.