Kallas wanted to discuss the last 80 years of European history but she only had 20 minutes.
Kallas's position was tenuous when she met with Yahoo News and she almost had to cancel her interview. She said there was a chance she wouldn't be here tomorrow because of the collapse of her coalition government days earlier and her round-the-clock negotiations to cobble together a new one.
Kallas wanted to send a message to the rest of the world that she was willing to give in to the Russians.
Kallas believes a fundamental mistake was made after the Second World War. The communists' crimes weren't condemned as much as the Nazi ones. There is a resurgence of Stalinism in Russia. Despite the murder of 20 million people, 70% of Russians support Stalin. After communism, history books inEstonia were rewritten, whereas Russians are still being taught the same history that we had to read during the Soviet period.
Kallas, who was 12 when the Berlin Wall fell, is the 13th prime minister since the Baltic country became independent in 1991.
The smallest of the three Baltic states, with a population of just 1.3 million, has so far sent more than $270 million worth of military assistance to Ukraine.
In addition to armored personnel carriers, antitank mines and a wide variety of small arms, Estonia has been an eager supplier of the U.S. made Javelin antitank missile system.
Estonia, a NATO member-state since 2004, has helped modernize the arsenal of the Ukrainians with a number of howitzers. The Estonians gave the equivalent of 0.81% of their gross domestic product to another nation at war.
Kallas wants people to know that security assistance is not charity. She told Yahoo News that she was asked in Parliament why they were doing this. I said thatUkraine is fighting for us. Russia isn't at war with us when they are. We have peace in this place.
Maintaining peace is of paramount importance to the people of Estonia, who share a 182-mile border with a revanchist power currently occupying 20% of Ukrainian territory. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed by Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler in 1940 and resulted in the annexation of Estonia. It was occupied by the Nazis after Hitler launched his doomed World War II attack on the Soviet Union.
The three Baltic countries remained under the control of the Soviets. Thousands of people were killed, imprisoned or deported. Kallas's mother, who was just 6 months old at the time, was sent in a cattle car along with Kallas's grandmother to the Russian tundra, where she lived until she was 10.
During the 1918-1920 Estonian War of Independence, Kallas's great-grandfather was a commander of the defense league. After the country gained its independence a second time, Siim Kallas became the prime minister.
geographical fatalism has been a problem since then. One can drive the length of the country in less than two hours and it could be overrun by the Russians. In 2004, Estonia joined the European Union and NATO to be firmly in the Western camp and insusceptible to a repeat of past victimhood.
Kallas knows that her family's suffering can be seen in every bullet and flak jacket her government has shipped to Ukraine.
Kallas caused a stir just before the NATO summit in Madrid when she said that the alliance had to change its plans for fortifying its eastern flank. NATO views the Baltic states as trip wire states that can be occupied for up to 180 days before they are defended. It was obvious that Kallas might not have a country to lead after 180 days. The contingency NATO membership was supposed to be stopped.
She told Yahoo News that seeing the monuments to Napoleon made her think that war always means destruction. It is not always so for a larger country. Glory and new wealth are included in war.
It doesn't seem accidental that she allusion to France. Kallas sees as a dangerous non sequitur the insistence of the west not to humiliate Putin. She wrote in the New York Times that Putin couldn't win. He doesn't know if he has won or his appetite will increase.
She said that she reminded her colleagues who wanted to talk to Putin. Talk to him. Remember, he is a war criminal. He is threatening famine if sanctions are not lifted. Russia's last hope is hunger, according to his state propagandists. This is the person you have to deal with.
The prime minister agrees with the idea that Putin doesn't need to give up anything in order to leave Ukraine. She said that he can pack up his army and go home whenever he wants because Russia's information system is his plaything. Kallas believes that his people will believe him. Don't fret about Putin's feelings.
Kallas said that the flip side of Putin's fail-safe is that he can drag out the war as long as he wants.
Kallas said that in the Western world, they would want to recover every single soldier on a foreign battlefield. They don't care because soldiers' mothers won't protest as they would in democracies.
Kallas gave a copy of "The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics" to the foreign diplomat at the meeting. The underlying message of the book is that you can't deter or outplay the tsar by assuming he will act the same way.
Kallas still enjoys a lot of domestic support for her handling of the situation, despite debate about how much money and weaponry the government should send to Ukraine. She said that they were thinking that people would get tired and ask why they were doing all this for Ukraine. According to the surveys we have done, the majority of the people in the country want us to help refugees. It is very clear.
She doesn't think the rest of Europe agrees. Even as it stares down a particularly cold winter due to Russia's energy blackmail, the European Union has managed to unite around sanctions against Russia and aid for Ukraine. Putin is fighting two wars on the battlefield, one against attrition and the other against European resolve.
The leader of one big country who is very supportive of Ukraine told me that the war is the fault of NATO. Kallas made a statement. The public pressure is making it difficult for him to keep the support going.
Kallas is sensitive to the moral and political contradictions the West has brought about. It's very fascinating. She said that they went from saying thatUkraine must not lose to saying that Russia must lose. Ukrainians won't be able to defend themselves if we stop helping them with military equipment. It is up to them to decide their fate but we are making that decision for them with our own policies.
Kallas is concerned about what will happen politically in the US. Should the United Kingdom, along with other stalwart defenders of Ukraine, supply Kyiv with enough weapons on their own, or should Washington stop supporting them?
She said it probably wasn't.
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