Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen visited you on Wednesday, flanked by the leaders of several Danish parties.

Frederiksen has said they are considering increasing the 200 Danish troops deployed as part of the NATO presence to 1,000.

Gerhard Gnauck

Political correspondent for Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania based in Warsaw.

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Yes, there is this discussion.

Final decisions will be made at the NATO summit in Madrid in June.

Until then, the pieces of the puzzle will be put together.

We, the three Baltic States, plan our defense together.

After all, the NATO battalions are easy to move back and forth with us.

And they are not only here to deter, but also to return fire in an emergency.

To be credible, however, we don't need alliance battalions, we need divisions.

The current NATO air surveillance is good, but we need to get to air defense.

The widespread concern is that the Baltic states cannot be defended against a Russian advance.

So far, our defense has been based on the principle: lose a territory and get it back later.

But we see, for example in Ukraine, what "lose and get back" can look like.

Therefore, we should move from a deterrent to a defensive stance.

So that we are able to strike back immediately.

Closing this gap in our defense capability is much cheaper than later liberating and rebuilding an occupied territory.

This does not mean that we currently see an acute military threat.

Russia has never attacked a NATO country before.

How many Ukraine refugees have arrived in Estonia so far?

About 25,000.

After all, that would be two percent of our population.

This means that we have taken in the fourth largest group of refugees per capita in the EU.

Did last week's NATO summit reassure Estonians?

The pledge to defend every inch of Alliance territory is, of course, very important.

But Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are, firstly, small and, secondly, a kind of NATO peninsula, connected to other member countries only via the Polish Suwałki region.

In this respect, we are much more exposed than Poland, for example.

NATO must take this into account even more.

How do you assess the war and the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine?

I have doubts that Russia really wants to voluntarily return all the territories it has already conquered.

So we should definitely not go back to business as usual.

President Putin must not win this war, he must not even think that he has won.

Because otherwise he would only take a two-year break and then advance again.

Then he would attack other countries or get more parts of Ukraine.

Russia's neighbors would live in constant fear.

So what should the West do?

40 percent of Russia's state revenues and thus also the finances for Putin's war machine come from the export of energy sources.

I understand that when it comes to sanctions, different countries have different sensitivities.

But I propose the following: Russia sells pipeline gas.

It is therefore dependent on certain customers.

At the EU summit, I proposed setting up an escrow account and saying: You, Russia, are responsible for the war damage.

So we put part of our energy payments into this account.

When the war is over, we will give this money to Ukraine for the reconstruction of the country.

How was the echo in the EU?

There are supporters of my idea, but I still have to do more convincing.

The message would be first: For every house you destroy, you will pay.

Secondly, and as a lawyer I know this: as a petitioner you are always in a weaker position.

But we have this money in our hands.

Third: Anyone who wants to can use this approach to avoid the imposition of sanctions.

There is also a legal basis for this.

Then we would no longer finance the war machine, but the reconstruction.

President Putin must pay for this war and these crimes.

Peace is not our primary goal.

The ultimate goal is that this never happens again.

What happened to the GDR howitzers that Estonia once got?

They wanted to hand them over to the Ukraine, but the necessary approval from the federal government was a long time coming.

I am very happy and grateful that Berlin approved this.

The howitzers should already be in Ukraine by now.