The Estonian prime minister is under mounting pressure over claims her husband has maintained business interests in Russia that the country’s president, Alar Karis, has said have put “the credibility of the Estonian state into question”.
Reports emerged last week that Stark Logistics, a company partly owned by Kaja Kallas’s husband, Arvo Hallik, has continued to do business in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine last year.
Kallas and Hallik maintain that the business was assisting another Estonian company, Metaprint, to wrap up trade in Russia.
Local media have reported that Metaprint sold €17m worth of goods to Russia between the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the following November.
The prime minister – a vocal supporter of Ukraine against Russia – refused to attend a select committee scheduled on Monday, where she was expected to discuss funding for the presidential office. There is uncertainty as to whether Kallas will attend an anti-corruption select committee sitting on Tuesday, discussing continuing business activities in Russia during the conflict in Ukraine.
The budget committee chair, Urmas Reinsalu of the opposition party Isamaa, described Kallas’s behaviour as unprecedented and called for her resignation.
“A government leader lacking in moral capital is also a security threat, undermining our international credibility with regard to a resolute sanctions policy and continuing support for Ukraine,” said Reinsalu.
Kallas, a former lawyer and the daughter of Estonia’s former prime minister Siim Kallas, is credited with boosting the Baltic nation’s international stature, and publicly chided the French president, Emmanuel Macron, for picking up the phone to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in the early days of the war.
The claims stand in contrast to Estonia’s fervent backing of Ukraine’s fight against Russia and Kallas’s advocacy of sanctions against the Kremlin, urging Europe to cut its Russian energy dependency.
Estonia is among the biggest donors of military, humanitarian and economic aid to Ukraine per capita, despite facing inflation of up to 25%.
While Estonia’s internal security service says Hallik’s business activities do not violate sanctions, public confidence in the prime minister has taken a hit.
Polls conducted by Estonia’s public broadcaster show most Estonians now want the prime minister to resign, in what could be a damaging reversal of public support for Kallas.
Kallas’s coalition partners, the Social Democrats and Estonia 200, have continued to back the prime minister. Kallas’s Reform party secured an election victory in February and has since led the country’s most progressive coalition government, passing a marriage equality bill in June.
Kallas has said she has no involvement in her husband’s business, saying “my husband and I never discuss business at home”. Reports in July suggested she provided him with a loan of €350,000 for investment purposes and has made several visits to Metaprint as prime minister. Kallas says her visits to Metaprint were before the start of the Ukraine war and that she had never discussed the nature or purpose of the loan to her husband.
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