Russia placed Estonia's Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and other senior Baltic politicians on the wanted list on Tuesday for allegedly desecrating "historical memory."
"These people are responsible for decisions that are actually tantamount to desecration of historical memory," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the TASS news agency.
The Russian authorities accuse Baltic officials of demolishing memorials to Soviet soldiers.
In addition to Kallas, Estonian Secretary of State Taimar Peterkop and Lithuanian Culture Minister Simonas Kairys are also on the Russian Interior Ministry's wanted list, according to Russian media.
The declaration is seen as symbolic since none of the politicians is expected to travel to Russia any time soon.
But Baltic officials sloughed it off, saying they considered the designation a badge of honor.
Russia's move is nothing surprising.
This is yet more proof that I am doing the right thing – the #EU's strong support to #Ukraine is a success and it hurts Russia. 1/
— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) February 13, 2024
"I am glad that my work to remove the ruins of Sovietization has not gone unnoticed," Kairys commented on his inclusion on the list.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, speaking to the BNS news agency in Vilnius on Tuesday about Kallas' designation, described Russia's "political assessment" as a "kind of honor for people who support Ukraine and support the fight of good against evil."
Russia said it is serious about the "crimes" these leaders are alleged to have committed.
"You have to answer for crimes against the memory of those who liberated the world from Nazism and fascism. And this is just the beginning," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram, explicitly referring to Kallas and Peterkop.
In the summer of 2022, a few months after the start of the all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine, Estonia demolished a Soviet war memorial - a replica of a T-34 tank with a red Soviet star - in the town of Narva on the border with Russia.
In 2007, the relocation of a bronze statue, another Soviet war memorial, from a park in Tallinn to the outskirts of the city sparked days of protests. One person was killed in the riots and more than 1,000 people were detained. Angry Russian-speaking Estonians said that the removal of the monument erased their history.
A number of monuments from the Soviet era were also dismantled in Lithuania following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
