Kaja Kallas, the Prime Minister of Estonia, has been placed on Moscow’s wanted list due to her efforts to have World War II monuments from the Soviet era removed from the Baltic country.
Other Baltic states officials were also put on the list.
The Russian foreign ministry Spokesperson, Maria Zakharova disclosed that the Estonian State Secretary, Taimar Peterkop, the Lithuanian Culture Minister Simonas Kairys, and Kallas were accused of “destroying monuments to Soviet soldiers”, a reference to the removal of Soviet-era second world war memorials.
“This is only the start,” Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel, adding that crimes against the memory of the “world’s liberators from nazism and fascism must be prosecuted.”
Russian authorities have not revealed the exact charges against the three.
Moscow has placed senior Ukrainian officials and generals on its wanted list since the start of the war, but Kallas is the first known head of government to be sought by Moscow.
The Estonian Prime Minister has been one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine, leading efforts to increase military assistance to Kyiv and tighten sanctions against Russia.
Moscow’s decision to add Kallas to its wanted list will further increase tension in the region at a time when many western capitals have sounded the alarm over a growing military threat from Russia.
When asked by reporters about Kallas on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said that the Estonian leader “took hostile acts against our country and historical memory.”
The removal of Soviet-era monuments has been a delicate issue in Estonia, a former Soviet republic from 1944 until 1991 where nearly a quarter of the population of 1.3 million people are ethnic Russians.
The process has accelerated since Russian troops invaded Ukraine, with Kallas pledging to remove all communist monuments in public spaces.
“We have decided … Soviet monuments must be removed from public spaces and we will do it as quickly as possible,” Kallas said in the summer of 2022 when officials removed a Soviet tank memorial from Narva, a largely Russian-speaking city close to the Russian border.
Estonia has been anxious to avoid some of the unrest it faced in 2007 after it removed a statue in Tallinn known as the Bronze Soldier, which led to two nights of rioting and looting, followed by a major cyber-attack that Estonian officials blamed on Russia.
The country has also moved to counter pro-Russian narratives about the war in Ukraine by banning from cable television four Russian channels, a major source of news for many older ethnic Russians.
Tensions remain high, and on Tuesday Estonia’s foreign intelligence service warned that Russia intended to double the number of its troops stationed along its border with the Baltic states and Finland as part of preparations for a potential military conflict with NATO within the next 10 years.
Kallas Dismisses Kremlin’s Move
Kaja Kallas dismissed being placed on a wanted list as Moscow’s “familiar scare tactic.”
Kallas said that Russia’s move was “nothing surprising.”
She wrote on X: “The Kremlin now hopes this move will help to silence me and others – but it won’t. The opposite. I will continue my strong support to Ukraine. I will continue to stand for increasing Europe’s defence.”
Russia has put several dozen Baltic politicians of various levels on the wanted list, including the former Latvian Interior Minister, Marija Golubeva.
Latvia has similarly announced plans to remove its Soviet memorials from public spaces, and it drew Moscow’s ire last year when it demolished a nearly 80-metre obelisk erected during the Soviet rule of Latvia.
All three Baltic states; Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, had already expelled Russian diplomats from their countries amid tensions over the conflict in Ukraine.
Relations with Moscow have remained tense since they gained independence during the collapse of the Soviet Union, which they have viewed as an occupying power.
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