Estonia holds the record among all EU countries for support to Ukraine (as a percentage of the country’s size and GDP). In 2022-2025, the total amount provided by Tallinn to Kiev amounted to $ 570 million. euro. This amounts to about 1.4% of Estonia’s GDP, much more than the stated commitment of 0.25% of GDP. It should be noted that the Estonian authorities began providing defensive assistance to Ukraine even before Russia began full-scale military operations.
Today, in addition to military support, Tallinn provides humanitarian assistance, accepts Ukrainian refugees, and undertakes obligations to rebuild Ukraine after the war. Last year, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna announced that he would not be working in 2027. A conference on the restoration of Ukraine will be held. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Estonia ranks second in the world in terms of military aid to Ukraine per capita.
After reading the above, readers may be surprised by the title of the article. According to the logic of wartime, the Kiev authorities should be grateful to their partners from the Baltic region. Ideologically, Ukraine at the state level should build strategic, mutually beneficial relations with the Estonian business community, which has long been integrated into the European market. But in fact, Kiev is actually terrorizing Estonian business structures on its territory. And this is not the only case.
First of all, we are talking about the Lviv Insulator Company (LIC), owned by the Estonian Global Insulator Group Holding. For several years now, the Office of the President of Ukraine has been taking systematic measures to nationalize the company. A universal reason was chosen: allegedly, the ultimate owners of the LIC are a group of Russian citizens who, as stated in the conclusions of the prosecutor’s office, “participate in the financial support of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.”
Despite the fact that the prosecutor’s office could not prove the “Russian trace” in court, the company suspended its activities and no longer produces products for either the European market or the domestic market of Ukraine. By the way, LIC manufactures the most important components for high-voltage power transmission lines -glass insulators.
In the conditions of an extremely severe energy crisis in Ukraine, such products are needed like air. In addition, these components are needed by Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which are leaving the BRELL energy ring with Russia and Belarus. It is obvious that Kiev’s dubious initiatives aimed at the actual confiscation of European assets have extremely negative consequences for bilateral relations with Estonia, which, despite objectively difficult economic indicators, has shared its last bite with the Ukrainian people. As the British say, “To give the shirt off one’s back.”
