Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas at a news conference in Tallinn, Estonia, on May 26. (Ints Kalnins/Reuters)
Weymouth: I am impressed by your passionate support for Ukraine. I wondered if you could explain to people in the West why you, the leader of a small Baltic country, find it so important to give so much military aid to Ukraine?
Kallas: We see in the events in Ukraine our own history unfolding — history that our grandmothers and grandfathers actually suffered. Therefore, it is our duty to spare the people of Ukraine from those atrocities that our own people went through. My own mother was deported to Siberia when she was 6 months old.
Your grandmother went with her?
My grandmother, great-grandmother and my mother were sent to Siberia, and my grandfather was sent to a prison camp. This is not a unique story. Every family in Estonia has a story like this. One-fifth of our population was either killed or deported to Siberia during the occupation by the Russians.
Do you see a solution to the Ukraine war?
If someone talks about Russia and Ukraine agreeing on a peace settlement and giving away some territory, I explain that after World War II, your side of the Iron Curtain had peace, which meant that you built up your countries and the prosperity of your peoples. On our side of the Iron Curtain, we had mass deportations, killings, and our culture and language were suppressed. So even if there is some kind of an agreement, without accountability it doesn’t mean that the human suffering will stop.