Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has called on partners in Europe and NATO to spend more money on defense in view of Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine. Estonia invests more than 3.2 percent of its gross domestic product in defense, said Kallas on Tuesday in Berlin. The partners should do the same, otherwise Russia will be provoked by weakness. “If they believe they can win, they will make a move. If they understand that we are strong enough, they will not dare to move towards NATO,” she added. “That’s why we really need to make this joint effort together,” demanded Kallas.
Kallas admitted that it was difficult to explain to the population that more should be invested in defense. Maybe you don't really feel like this is necessary at the moment. “But by the time you feel like it's necessary, it will be too late. That's the problem with defense.” In response to a question about SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich's mind games about freezing the war in Ukraine, Kallas replied: “In a world full of violence, pacifism would be suicide – to put it simply.”
Kallas was then to be awarded the Walther Rathenau Prize for her contributions to European understanding and her clear stance on the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. With the prize, the Walther Rathenau Institute honors people for an outstanding life's work in foreign policy. The first prize winner in 2008 was the former Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, later followed by, among others, the former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the then Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and the Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer. Rathenau was foreign minister of the young Weimar Republic. The liberal Jewish politician was shot by right-wing extremists in Berlin's Grunewald on June 24, 1922 on his way to the Foreign Office.
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