Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has suggested that the entire Russian population should be re-educated to eliminate all traces of “imperialist dreams” claiming that otherwise, with or without President Vladimir Putin at the helm, the “history will repeat itself” and Europe will never be safe.
Expressing no doubt that with the help of NATO, Ukraine will eventually defeat Russia on the battlefield, Kallas said on Sunday that it was high time to discuss the issue of “responsibility” for the conflict, and how to deal with the Russians who “admiring dictators.”
“Our history books were rewritten after we regained our independence to reflect all the crimes that were committed. It was not the same for Russia. Kallas said on the final day of the Munich Security Conference.
Drawing parallels with Nazi Germany, Kallas did not argue until after the Nuremberg Tribunal “The German people learned of the crimes committed by the Nazis, hence the change in mentality.”
“[The Russians] truly define themselves across the empire; they are the masters of this empire. If people admire dictators, there is no obstacle to becoming one or submitting to them. she says, arguing that the only way to break this cycle is to rewrite the history books.
“History matters… They still teach and learn from Soviet history books,” she added. “And I’m not talking about Putin, not Putin, it’s the nation and what’s in it, what are they really celebrating…we have to cut this cycle.”
Estonia, along with other Baltic states, has been among Ukraine’s hardline supporters amid the conflict with Moscow, pledging around 1% of its total GDP in military assistance to Kyiv, strongly backing sanctions EU-wide against Russia. Among other things, last year the country’s parliament passed a bill to completely abolish education in the Russian language. Kallas defended the measure, which affects Russia’s ethnic minority – about a quarter of the national population of 1.3 million. She insisted that the reform is entirely “normal” thing for Europe.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Estonian officials have increasingly attempted to portray the period as illegal “annexation,” rewriting the history of Nazi German occupation, Estonian collaboration with the Nazis, and the Soviet decision to incorporate the Baltic States in 1940. The Nazi-ruled Reichskommissariat Ostland region was the scene of fierce battles during the World War II, with German forces, as well as locally raised troops fighting the advancing Soviet Red Army before the country’s liberation in September 1944.
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