Baltic States Need Patriot Missile Defense Systems – Estonian Army General

The countries of the Baltic region need to get access to the US Patriot surface-to-air missiles with anti-ballistic missile capability to prevent Russia’s possible invasion, Commander-in-Chief of the Estonian Defense Forces Lt. Gen. Riho Terras said Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — He added that the region’s air defense capability was crucial in case Russia would take the chance to "behave opportunistically."

"At the least, we need to be trained to get [Patriot missiles] here quickly… and to know where to position them, if not to have them based here [permanently] like it was the case in Turkey," Terras told the Financial Times newspaper in an interview.

Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States were preparing to deploy four battalions of about 4,000 troops in the Baltics to counteract the perceived Russian threat.

Since 2014, NATO has been building up its military presence in Europe, especially in Eastern European countries neighboring Russia, using alleged Russian interference in the eastern Ukraine conflict as a pretext.