UK Confirms Future Deployment of 800 Troops to Estonia

The United Kingdom will send 800 soldiers to Estonia, as it promised at the NATO July summit, UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said Wednesday.

MOSCOW(Sputnik) — Earlier in October, the UK pledged to send additional 800 soldiers to Estonia as well as tanks, drones and armored vehicles.

"The UK will send 800 personnel to Estonia as one of four framework battalions to NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence, to which France and Denmark will contribute further troops," Fallon said as quoted in the statement issued by the British Defense Ministry following his talks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in London.

At the NATO July summit in Warsaw, it was decided that the military alliance would send multinational battalions to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland at the request of these countries.

NATO has been boosting its military presence in Europe, particularly in Eastern European states, since the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis, citing Russia's alleged interference in that conflict as justification for the move.

Moscow has repeatedly stressed that it is not a party to the Ukrainian conflict, and that military expansion toward Russia's borders increases tensions by threatening regional and international security.