Kaja Kallas shoots straight and accuses Putin of being a dictator, urging more pressure on Russia

The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy criticises Russia’s handling of the war, urging more efforts against the war in Ukraine, while the Russian Duma accuses her of ‘Russophobia’

Russia ‘has not had democratic, free and fair elections for a long time’, Vladimir Putin ‘is a real dictator’ and in the conflict in Ukraine ‘there is an aggressor and there is a victim’, with Kiev having ‘done nothing to provoke this war’. Thus Kaja Kallas, EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, in an interview with La Repubblica.

Speaking about Russian operations, Kallas says: “They want us to be afraid of their threats. The answer is not to be”, stressing the importance of not giving in to intimidation. Furthermore, Kallas is convinced that Donald Trump ‘could really end this war in a very short time by putting pressure on Russia’, although he notes that ‘the pressure instead is on Ukraine’. ‘We have not seen strong pressure on Russia yet,’ she adds.

Kallas reiterates that the Ukrainians are defending themselves and that the EU must support Ukraine with weapons and sanctions on Russia. “So far we have been united. We need everyone to be on board,” he concludes.

The previous day, the president of the Russian Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, called for the removal of Kallas from office and her referral to a UN international tribunal, accusing her of “Russophobia” and “outrage against historical memory”. According to Moscow, Kallas called on EU countries and accession candidates not to participate in the celebrations in Russia on the 80th anniversary of the victory in World War II. Volodin called Kallas’ appeal “an ultimatum” and a “disrespectful gesture towards those who sacrificed their lives to save the world from fascism”.

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