Valeri Saar

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Valeri Saar (born June 28, 1955 ) is a former Estonian major general . From 2007 to 2012 he was Commander of the Estonian Air Force and from 2012 to 2016 he was the military representative of his home country to NATO and the European Union .

Life

Valeri Saar was born in Valga , in the south of what was then the Estonian SSR . He is married and has two daughters. In addition to his mother tongue, he also speaks English, Russian and German.

Military career

After completing his school education in 1972, Saar joined the Soviet Army and attended an officers' college in Zhytomyr in what is now Ukraine. From 1976 he worked as an officer in the area of ​​air surveillance and security until he switched to the armed forces in his home country that were being established in 1992 .

There he was again active in the same field (initially in the rank of major , from 1994 as a lieutenant colonel ) and also attended postgraduate studies at the University of the Federal Armed Forces . He was appointed Chief of Staff of the Air Force in 1996 and promoted to Colonel in 1998 . Over the next few years, he attended several advanced training courses and held various leadership positions in the Estonian Armed Forces and NATO, until he was appointed Commander of the Estonian Air Force in 2007. A year later, he was promoted to brigadier general .

He held the post of air force chief until 2012 before moving to Brussels, where he was active as a representative of the Estonian armed forces at NATO and the EU. In this post he was promoted to major general in 2016. He was retired from active service in August of the same year. He then worked as an advisor to the commander of the Estonian Armed Forces and representative of the Estonian Ministry of Defense in Ukraine.

Web links

  • Biography of Valeri Saar on the NATO website.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kindralmajor Saar ja brigaadikindral Hoppe jätkavad teenistust reservis , online report on the website of the Estonian Armed Forces from August 9, 2016, accessed on August 9, 2016 (Estonian)
  2. ↑ General Saar appointed special representative for defense technology in Ukraine , online notification on the website of the Estonian Ministry of Defense of April 3, 2017, accessed on April 4, 2017 (English)
personal data
SURNAME Saar, Valeri
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Estonian major general
DATE OF BIRTH June 28, 1955