Estonia says Russia must pay for atrocities in Ukraine to prevent repeat war crimes

The prime minister of Estonia insisted this Sunday that once the war is in Ukraine, Russia should be brought to justice for war crimes and for the decision to invade your neighbor, if you want a chance to develop a normal relationship with West.

Kaja Kallawhose small Baltic country is the largest per capita contributor of military aid to Ukraine, said The Associated Press that the conflict cannot end with a peace agreement that divides the country and don’t hold Moscow responsible.

“I don’t think there can be relations as usual with a pariah state that he hasn’t really given up on imperialist goals,” the official said on the sidelines of a major security conference in Munich. “If we don’t learn this lesson and prosecute crimes of aggression, we’ll just war crimes will continue”.

A day earlier at the same conference, Vice President Kamala Harris He said the United States had determined that Russia had committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine and that Russia should be held accountable. “Justice must be served” Harris added.

In response, the Russian Ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonovconsidered that the American announcement was “an attempt to demonize Russia”.

Kallas noted that although the Nazi Crimes were prosecuted at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II, no post-Cold War tribunal was established to prosecute the crimes of the Soviet Union, including the mass deportations of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians to during the five decades of Soviet occupation.

This time, Moscow must pay the consequences. “There must be a responsibility (before) we can talk about our relationship with Russia,” he said.

Kallas, 45, runs the Centre-right Reform Party of Estonia, she has been Prime Minister since 2021 and not everyone supports her position on Ukraine.

She was mentioned as a possible candidate to replace Jens Stoltenberg when he leaves the post of Secretary General of the I WILL TAKE in autumn. Although she says it is “highly unlikely”, she noted that the Baltic countries have not secured any leadership positions in the military alliance since joining in 2005.

(With AP information)

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