Russia wants to arrest this country's leader for removing Soviet-era monuments

Associated Press

Feb. 13, 2024 2:39 PM PT

TALLINN, Estonia — Russia has put Estonia’s prime minister on a wanted list over her efforts to remove Soviet-era World War II monuments in the Baltic nation, officials said Tuesday as tensions between Russia and the West soar amid the war in Ukraine.

The name of Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas appeared on the Russian Interior Ministry’s list of people wanted on unspecified criminal charges.

Independent Russian news outlet Mediazona first reported Tuesday that Kallas was on the list; it said she has been on it for months. The list includes scores of officials and lawmakers from other Baltic nations.

Kallas dismissed it as Moscow’s “familiar scare tactic.”

“Russia may believe that issuing a fictitious arrest warrant will silence Estonia,” she said. “I refuse to be silenced — I will continue to vocally support Ukraine and advocate for the strengthening of European defenses.”

The inclusion of Kallas — who has fiercely advocated for increased military assistance to Ukraine and stronger sanctions against Russia — appears to reflect the Kremlin’s effort to raise the stakes in the face of NATO and European Union pressure over the war.

“Estonia and I remain steadfast in our policy: supporting Ukraine, bolstering European defense, and fighting against Russian propaganda,” Kallas said. “This hits close to home for me: My grandmother and mother were once deported to Siberia, and it was the KGB who issued the fabricated arrest warrants.”

Estonia and fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organization members Latvia and Lithuania have pulled down monuments that are widely seen as an unwanted legacy of the Soviet occupation of those countries.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago, numerous monuments to Red Army soldiers also have been taken down in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Moscow has denounced those moves as desecrating the memory of Soviet soldiers who fell while fighting Nazi Germany.

Estonian Secretary of State Taimar Peterkop and Lithuanian Culture Minister Simonas Kairys also are on the list, which is accessible to the public, along with scores of officials and lawmakers from Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

“This, of course, is a kind of reward for people who support Ukraine and support the fight of good against evil,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said, adding that those on the list should be careful while traveling to third countries.

Mika Golubovsky, editor of Mediazona’s English-language service, told the Associated Press that Kallas and other politicians from Baltic nations have been in the Interior Ministry’s wanted database since mid-October and that Kallas was the only head of state on the list.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed that Kallas and Peterkop were on the list because of their involvement in removing monuments.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was a response to action by Kallas and others who “have taken hostile action toward historic memory and our country.”

Russia has laws criminalizing the “rehabilitation of Nazism” that include punishing the desecration of war memorials. Russia’s Investigative Committee, the country’s top criminal investigation agency, has a department dealing with alleged “falsification of history” and “rehabilitation of Nazism,” which has ramped up its action since the start of the war, according to Mediazona.

Mediazona, which downloaded and studied more than 96,000 individual entries in the database, said it also includes scores of Ukrainian officials and foreign nationals accused of fighting alongside Ukrainian armed forces. The entries usually don’t specify the charges or when the person was added to the list.

Golubovsky noted that not every high-profile addition to the list is publicly announced.

Officials in the Investigative Committee probably initially added Kallas and other Western officials to the list to score points with their superiors, he said, and the Kremlin only used it in its rhetoric about the West attacking Russia’s historical memory after it was disclosed.

The inclusion of Kallas could also mark an attempt by Moscow to counter last year’s arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin issued by the International Criminal Court over the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. The Interior Ministry’s list also includes ICC President Piotr Hofmanski, as well as judges and prosecutors.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Meta spokesperson Andy Stone are on the list too. Meta is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which are banned in Russia.

While it means little in practical terms since contacts between Moscow and the West have been frozen during the conflict, it comes at a time when European members of NATO are growing increasingly worried about how the U.S. election will affect the alliance.

Former President Trump has rekindled the fears of NATO allies that he could allow Russia to expand its aggression in Europe if he returns to the White House.

“‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’” the Republican front-runner recently said he told an unidentified NATO member during his presidency. “‘No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay.’”

That statement sharply contrasted with President Biden’s pledge “to defend every inch of NATO territory,” as the alliance’s charter commits all members to do in case of attack.

Trump’s statement shocked many in Europe, drawing a pledge from Poland, France and Germany to bolster Europe’s security and defense power.

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith told reporters Tuesday that “encouraging the Kremlin to attack any NATO ally or alliance territory really puts our soldiers — U.S. soldiers and our allies’ soldiers — in greater danger. Doing so, making those types of statements, is dangerous and frankly irresponsible.”

While Putin says he has no plans to strike any NATO country unless it attacks first, Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service released an annual report Tuesday noting that Russia has sharply increased its weapons output and warning that “the Kremlin is probably anticipating a possible conflict with NATO within the next decade.”

Russia puts leader of NATO member Estonia on wanted list for removing Soviet-era monuments

More to Read

More From the Los Angeles Times

Most Read in World & Nation