The Portrait

Kaja Kallas, the former Estonian premier wanted by Russia: who she is and why Moscow wants her

Kaja Kallas, former Prime Minister of Estonia, has been placed on Russia's wanted list. The article outlines her biography, her political positions and the geopolitical context that led to her indictment

13 February 2024

2' min read

Key points

Kallas, the destruction of Soviet monuments
Kallas: "Sign that I am doing the right thing"
Pfirst woman premier in Estonia
Kallas, mother and grandmother deported to Siberia

2' min read

On 13 February 2024, the Russian police placed the then Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas (now former, she resigned on 15 July 2024), her State Secretary and the Minister of Culture of Lithuania on the wanted list, according to the Russian Ministry of the Interior's database. This is the first time a prime minister has been placed on the Russian government's wanted list.

Kallas, the destruction of Soviet monuments

On the same day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov (video) stated that Kallas is wanted for 'desecration of historical memory'. The Russian state agency Tass said Baltic officials are accused of 'destroying monuments to Soviet soldiers' from World War II erected in the Baltic Republic after the war when it was under USSR rule.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (video) said: 'This is only the beginning. Crimes against the memory of the world's liberators from Nazism and fascism must be prosecuted,' Zakharova said.

Kaja Kallas con il presidente ucraino Volodymyr Zelensky

Kallas: "I am doing the right thing"

Kaja Kallas replied that Moscow's decision to put her on the wanted list is proof that it is "doing the right thing" and added that it will continue to ensure its "strong support for Ukraine" and to fight to "strengthen the defence of Europe". Kallas, in a message on X, added that "Russia's tools have not changed", recalling that his mother and grandmother were deported to Siberia. "The Kremlin," the Estonian premier writes again, "now hopes that this decision will silence me and others, but it will not.

The Baltic nations that were formerly part of the Soviet Union have announced plans to demolish Soviet-era monuments. In 2022, Kallas stated that the Estonian authorities would dismantle 200 to 400 such monuments. In response, the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, ordered a criminal investigation into the matter.

Baltic politicians risk arrest only if they cross the Russian border, otherwise declaring them wanted will have no concrete consequences.

Kallas, first woman premier in Estonia

Prime Minister of Estonia since 2021, Kallas is the first woman to hold this position in the country. Leader of the Reform Party, Kallas was a member of the European Parliament in 2014-2018, representing the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. Prior to her election, she was a lawyer specialising in European competition law.
High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy in the von der Leyen II Commission from 1 December 2024.

Kaja Kallas was born in Tallinn in 1977. Her father Siim Kallas is a former Prime Minister of Estonia (in office from 2002 to 2003) and a former European Commissioner (2004-2014).

Kallas, mother and grandmother deported to Siberia

During the Second World War, after the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Estonia in 1940, as part of the wave of executions and deportations from Estonia that followed, his mother Kristi, who was six months old at the time, was deported by the Stalinist regime to Siberia with her mother and grandmother in a cattle car and lived there until the age of ten. Kallas' great-grandfather was Eduard Alver (1886-1939), one of the politicians who led the creation of the independent Republic of Estonia in 1918 and the first Estonian police chief in 1918-1919.