Estonia’s defence minister Hanno Pevkur resigned from government following a furore over a botched European Union-funded deal to buy artillery shells for Ukraine from a company owned by an Indian entity, which denied allegations of wrongdoing.
Pevkur, who has been in office since 2022, announced his decision in a TV appearance late on Wednesday. He has been the longest-serving minister since Estonia gained independence in 1991 and is well-known internationally.
On Wednesday, Estonian newspaper Eesti Ekspress reported that in 2024 Estonia made a deal for shells with Italian-registered company Datasel SRL, which, it stated, is owned by the Indian company Neco Defence Munitions. Neither firm had produced shells before, it reported.
Pevkur has been facing calls to resign after the Estonian Prosecutor’s Office opened a criminal investigation into the ammunition procurement process that had been plagued by long deliver delays and inferior products.
Ramesh Jayaswal, director at Jayaswal NECO Industries — the parent company of NECO Defence System Pvt Ltd — disputed the reporting and told HT: “We supplied artillery shells following quality checks by concerned Estonian officials. They subsequently awarded us more contracts but later halted them due to a lack of funds.”
The funding for the deal was provided by the EU as part of a multi-billion-euro effort to shore up Kyiv’s weapons stocks at a time when 155mm artillery shells were in short supply. The defence ministry’s procurement agency made large upfront payments to the company in 2024 to secure deliveries.
Estonian defence officials have also launched a lawsuit against the supplier at a European arbitration court.
Pevkur faced a grilling by lawmakers at a public special committee session on Wednesday morning. He called the situation an “ordinary contract dispute”, that had to be judged in the context of international pressure to urgently aid Kyiv’s defences against Russia’s invasion amid a global shortage of weapons supply.
The ruling coalition government lost its majority in parliament in August, making it likely that the opposition would stage a successful no-confidence vote to remove Pevkur if he stayed in office.
Estonia’s defence procurement agency has prided itself for being fast and nimble, putting it in a position to act as a facilitator for other European nations buying weapons for Ukraine. It has executed around €400 million ($464 million) in contracts on behalf of international donors, according to Pevkur.
