Kaja Kallas blasts ‘witch hunt’ probe into husband’s Russia business ties

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas on Wednesday blamed the opposition for orchestrating an attack over her husband’s business ties to Russia.

“This is a witch-hunt by the opposition,” Kallas told the Guardian. “It is an excuse to waste time in parliament and obstruct our progressive agenda.”

Kallas, who emerged as one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters in the European Union, has been under fire since Estonian media revealed in August that her husband, Arvo Hallik, owned a stake in a logistics company that continued doing business in Russia even after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.

The prime minister — who won reelection in March and is now at the helm of a new coalition composed of her center-right Estonian Reform Party, the centrist Estonia 200 Party and the Social Democratic Party — has denied prior knowledge of her husband’s company’s link to Russia, and refuses to resign.

But Kallas is still facing pressure from the opposition — including from her former coalition partners, the Center Party, which has called for the establishment of an investigative committee into her husband’s business activities in Russia.