Toomas Hendrik Ilves: Churchillian moment has come for EU and US

The president of Estonia calls on NATO allies to respond to Russia with “strength, clarity and speed”.

According to the Estonian leader, the economic sanctions may not be enough. However, he refrained from public calls to military action against Moscow. “For U.S. and European Union leaders, a Churchillian moment has come. We need to rise to the occasion with strength, clarity and speed,” Ilves wrote in his article in The Washington Post.

Historians praise the British MP of the WWII Winston Churchill, who showed armed resistance to Adolf Hitler, while European democracies were surrendering to the German troops one by one. In his article, Ilves doesn't call to take direct military action, but speaks vaguely about “decisive and united steps”, Voice of America reports.

The Western alliance should get back in business, according to him.

“NATO’s raison d’être is to defend its members and their territory. Steps must be taken immediately to ensure a NATO presence across the alliance’s territory.”

“Second, neither the aggression in Ukraine nor the illegal annexation of Crimea can become cost-free successes,” the Estonian president writes. “Ukraine requires our strong support. We must remain committed to helping as much as we can. Moldova and Georgia must also be assisted and reassured.”

Ilves thinks the West's response to Russia should not be about the price of gas, but about respect for common values.

“Any economic sanction is cheaper than military intervention,” he writes avoiding details.”Nothing costs more than the loss of freedom.”

“In years past, the transatlantic alliance has withstood some difficult challenges,” the president of Estonia summed up. “Today, we face the most difficult one in generations. The lights of liberty are being extinguished in parts of Europe. We must take decisive and united steps to ensure that future generations do not question why nothing was done and why we didn’t act when so much was at stake.”