“We are not here to fight a war with Russia but to prevent a war with Russia.” This was the message the Danish soldiers Daniel, Frank and Emma gave us when we yesterday visited the NATO base in Tapa, Estonia. Since January 2018 Danish soldiers have participated in the NATO presence in Estonia that has increased as a response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the Ukrainian-Russian war in Eastern Ukraine. We visited them to get a better understanding of the situation.
”When friends ask me if I think they should leave Ukraine and start a life in a more stable country I always ask them: Do you like safety, predictability, stability, and knowing what will happen tomorrow and next year? – then you should go. But if you like challenges, fast changes, development, movement – you should stay here in Ukraine… Most of them stay.” Dimitri is 24 years old and IT entrepreneur. He took part in the revolution at Maidan in 2014 and look at Maidan and the war in east Ukraine as the Ukrainian war of independence. Independence from Russia. Dimitri is positive about the future of Ukraine; through hard work from his generation Ukraine can be the new Europe.
“The older generation in Estonia call my generation snowflakes. We are moving from place to place and change jobs, we talk about our feelings and the difficult things in our lives. The older generation think that makes us light and blowing in the wind, that it makes us fragile. I see it all as our strength”