Estonia's Michal Offers Defence Ministry to General Herem as RKIK Terminates Seven Ukraine Contracts
Tallinn, 4 September 2026
Key points
- Prime Minister Kristen Michal approached retired general Martin Herem, Estonia's former defence forces commander, about becoming defence minister; Herem calls it "more an invitation to consider it" than a firm offer
- The Estonian Centre for Defence Investments (RKIK) has terminated 7 of the 27 Ukraine-support contracts it signed, worth over EUR 71.6 million combined, and is pursuing the rest in arbitration or court
- Two firms are named separately: five terminated contracts worth EUR 59.8 million are already in arbitration or before Harju District Court; two more worth EUR 11.8 million are being prepared for court
- The Prosecutor's Office opened a criminal proceeding into the defence ministry's administrative area on Tuesday, based on 2024–25 National Audit Office findings; no one has been charged
- A European Commission team is to spend three days in Estonia at the end of September examining how RKIK vetted the contractors, after RKIK told ERR it cannot document how one supplier, Datasel, was found and screened
Estonia's search for a replacement defence minister opened with an approach to retired general Martin Herem, as the procurement agency at the centre of the scandal that forced Hanno Pevkur's resignation disclosed it has terminated a quarter of its Ukraine-support contracts and a prosecutor has opened a criminal proceeding.
Michal raised the defence portfolio with Herem outside the recording of Herem's own podcast. Herem's account to ERR was deliberately hedged: "Was I made an offer? Essentially, yes. But it was more an invitation to consider it, rather than, 'Hey, take the job.'" On his own readiness he was blunter — "Am I ready to be a minister? No. Does Estonia need saving? Yes, it does. Do I have to do that at that level? That I'm not sure about." Herem commanded the Estonian Defence Forces from December 2018 to June 2024 and has since advised Milrem Robotics. Candidates are due to firm up within the week, with the Riigikogu returning from recess on 14 September.
RKIK's own numbers, given to ERR the same day, show the scale of the problem Pevkur left behind: 27 contracts worth around EUR 350 million signed to arm Ukraine, of which 7 have now been terminated. Five, worth EUR 59.8 million, are already in international arbitration or before Harju District Court; two more, worth EUR 11.8 million, are being prepared for court, which RKIK head Elmar Vaher said would likely proceed "at the end of this year or the beginning of next year." The Prosecutor's Office opened a criminal proceeding Tuesday into the ministry's administrative area, drawing on 2024–25 National Audit Office findings; no one has been charged. RKIK separately says it cannot document how it found or vetted Datasel, the supplier behind the original EUR 70 million shell deal — why the Commission is sending a team to spend three days in Estonia examining RKIK's due diligence directly rather than taking the agency's word for it.
A caretaker candidate weighing the job in public is itself a symptom of what RKIK's disclosures describe. Signal No. 139 carried both on the same day. Pevkur's resignation removed the minister but left the institution that signed 27 contracts without documenting its own vetting process; Vaher's own diagnosis — that RKIK "as an institution and as a system simply was not prepared for a rise in the defense budget on this scale" — is the harder problem a new minister, soldier or politician, inherits, and it does not resolve with a change of name at the top.
Related · Estonia's procurement inquiry
