Baltics summon Russian chargés d'affaires over wanted list

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania summoned Russia's chargés d'affaires on February 14 in response to media reports that the Russian Interior Ministry had added Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas (Reform), State Secretary Taimar Peterkop, and more than a dozen Latvian and Lithuanian officials to its wanted list.
A representative of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed indignation about Russia adding the names of Estonian officials to the Russian Ministry of the Interior's wanted list. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs requested a written explanation for this information.
The ministry also notified the representative of Russia that these steps by the Russian state will not stop Estonia from doing the right thing, and Estonia will not change its resolute support for Ukraine.
The Latvian broadcaster LSM reported that the chargé d'affaires of the embassy of the Russian Federation in Riga was also summoned "in order to receive his explanations concerning a publicly accessible list of former and current public officials of Latvia against whom politically motivated charges had been brought by Russia."
"The Foreign Ministry has underlined that Russia's attempts at exercising extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction must be regarded as intervention in the domestic affairs of Latvia and being at variance with the Charter of the United Nations," the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in the statement.
Lithuania's Foreign Ministry also handed a protest note to a representative of the Russian Embassy regarding Moscow's decision to put Lithuanian Culture Minister Simonas Kairys and several dozen other politicians on the wanted list.
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Editor: Kristina Kersa