this is bbc news. we'll have all the headlines for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk, from tallinn. i'm stephen sackur. estonia has vivid memories of invasion and rule from moscow, and that collective hurt underpins this country's staunch support for ukraine in its war with russia. but standing up to vladimir putin doesn't come risk—free for this small baltic nation. my guest today is estonia's prime minister, kaja kallas. are people here beginning to question her decision—making when it comes to russia and ukraine?

prime minister kaja kallas, welcome to hardtalk. of all the voices of support for ukraine in europe, yours has perhaps been the staunchest, the strongest, the loudest over the last 18 months. is that because, for you, this isn'tjust about european security, about geopolitics, it also seems very personal? well, it is personal, i guess, for, for every estonian. i mean, we are here in the state elder�*s room and the pictures you see on those walls are of our state elders, so who built our country in 1920s. and if you look at their dates of death, then they all were killed or died in captivity when the occupation started. so for us... they were killed

in the soviet union? yes, so this is what we see in ukraine, is our history reliving itself because of the russian aggression. and yourfamily history, if i'm right, i think your mother was deported, along with her mother when she was a baby. yes, my mother was six months old baby when she was deported to siberia, together with my grandmother and my great—grandmother. so they were deported in a cattle wagon, and you can see that cattle wagon here, as well. so i understand, everybody would understand, that, foryou, standing up to aggression from the kremlin, from moscow, has a long history and it has a deep personal importance, but surely right now you're facing a challenge to stand back from the emotion

and look at what is happening in terms of the ukraine war with rational eyes. and would you acknowledge that right now things are getting more difficult for those of you who are supporting, backing ukraine? it was seen that it's going to be harder every day because when the war is continuing, and we said in the beginning that we are in this for the long haul, because the russians clearly are, and we have to keep supporting ukraine, but it's also clear that all the supporters are democratic countries, which means that all the domestic issues kick in and other worries kick in, and ukraine seems further away. but i think still, if we don't increase our support or if we don't support ukraine so that they can defend themselves and russia wins, then we're going to pay a much, much higher price. and not only us here, but the whole, whole world. but you obviously have seen,

in the last few days, diplomacy, which from the point of view of ukraine has become very difficult with allies, not least with poland. the issue being grain exports from ukraine, which poland, along with other neighbouring countries like slovakia and hungary, have banned, and the eu backed that ban. but the eu has now lifted the ban, leaving the poles and the slovakians and the hungarians deeply unhappy at the prospect of ukrainian grain undermining their markets. they're trying to negotiate a solution, but right now it has exposed deep cracks in the coalition. well, first of all, we have to zoom out of the picture and understand that why we have this grain issue in the first place, and it is because of the russian blockade and we wouldn't have that if we wouldn't have a war in ukraine and if we wouldn't have the problems we have on the black sea right now. so that is the main, main source of the problem.

but the reality is, in the last few days, we've seen ukraine launch a suit against poland and the others at the wto. we've seen poland respond, in the words of the prime minister, by saying, "we are no longer supplying weapons to ukraine." we have seen real anger on both sides. does this worry you? of course it worries me in a sense that all these kind of spats actually play for russia. this is what russia has wanted to see from the beginning, that there are cracks in our unity, and we have stayed united for all this time. the tensions are clearly deriving from the internal politics that, you know, poland has elections coming. i think right now it's still fundamental to focus on the solutions, and i'm glad to see that they have sat down and, you know, kissed and made up and we can continue still. well, i don't know if it was quite kissing and making up.

certainly there are efforts to resolve the immediate crisis, but it's left a sour taste. here's something that president zelensky said the other day. he said, "some european allies are undermining solidarity with political theatre." do you agree? i can see the tensions and i can also see that, you know, president zelensky has made some very strong remarks before that has also infuriated some of the allies, if you think about what happened during the nato summit. why this is echoing so much is that all the allies feel that we have done a lot for ukraine, but we still have to do a lot more in order for them to defend themselves. i guess the problem is that it's clear now the war isn't going to end any time soon.

the counteroffensive launched earlier this year by the ukrainians has gained some small territories, but it has not been the major breakthrough, the breaking of that land corridor between crimea and the donbas, which the ukrainians hope to achieve. does it worry you that right now there are real questions about whether various different elements of the us—european—western alliance against putin can hold together? well, first of all, on the counteroffensive, i must say that the counteroffensive has been going on since 2a february. so if you compare that, they have made huge efforts and also gained the territories back that russia has occupied. but, of course, we would all want to see this going further. but the question is to us all, have we done enough? and my question is, if all the allies would have given all the military aid that we are giving now already

in february orjanuary, like we did in �*22, then maybe the outcome would have been different. so ukraine can defend itself as long as we support them with military aid. and there is a question to us, how can we do this more? one example — you in estonia have given, if you add up the military plus the economic plus the humanitarian assistance you've given to ukraine, it represents at least one whole per cent of gdp. the same figure in a big, major european country like france is less than one tenth per capita of what you've given. yes. what do you think of that? yeah, we all come from our history. and, i mean, different countries in europe have different history. and therefore, for us, as i said, it's very black and white. it's our history, you know, reliving this, our history, in ukraine right now.

and that's why we want to avoid what happened to us — 50 years of occupation, all the atrocities, mass deportations, killings of people, pressing down our culture. we want to avoid that, and therefore our defence right now starts from ukraine. ukraine is fighting our enemy. maybe in some other countries... and i've been reading about the history of different allies, to understand where they come from, and their worries have been totally different. so i actually say that it's very positive compared to 2014, when crimea was annexed, how much we have done now and how we have kept this unity for one and a half years and given more and more. and those planes and big, big equipment will come eventually. just one more big thought on the geopolitics. are you, as a european leader, deeply concerned about the political uncertainty in the united states, ie what would happen

if donald trump or maybe even a different republican were to win the white house in 202a? because trump and all of the other... right now, the top three republican candidates for that nomination are all saying they want an immediate cessation of hostilities, they want to talk to putin, they want to do a deal with putin. trump says he could do that deal in 2a hours, which in essence means he would be negotiating territorial compromise. does that worry you? all these talks worry us, i mean, all these talks that are actually not about sustainable peace. and why i say sustainable peace is that peace that lasts, this is our interest. and therefore, we have to talk about more what are the elements of a sustainable peace. and one of those elements is accountability for the crimes committed in ukraine. but i mean, elections, all the allies are democratic countries and we have to work

with all the leaders of different allies that their democratic elections bring. can you imagine working with donald trump on ukraine, given his positions? of course, we have to explain this situation more and more. i mean, donald trump... he's not a man likely to take explanation or lecture from europe, is he? no, this is true — but at the same time, america is notjust one person. america is much larger. you have checks and balances in place. and also, i have been talking to both sides of the aisle of american politics. and there are very strong voices, both in the republicans as well as democrats, to support ukraine as long as it takes. and i think, you know, america has been always the leader of the democratic world and everybody is looking up to them. and i think president biden has done a lot and his leadership has been vital for the support to ukraine.

let's bring it closer to home, talk about the way the war is impacting on estonia. i'm going to begin with a pretty extraordinary statement by the polish president, duda, in new york at the un general assembly just a few days ago. he said ukraine is like a drowning man who will drag down those who are trying to help him. put that into the frame of estonia and estonia's security. could it be that your preoccupation right now with supporting ukraine is actually endangering estonia's long—term security? well, definitely not. defence is not an escalation. and we are members of nato, as is uk, for example. so we have, in addition to our own defence, we have the collective defence of nato. yeah, but i'm just thinking in practical terms. you've stripped your arsenal, your weapon stores, bare

to send stuff to ukraine. as i understand it, pretty much all of your iss—millimetre artillery has gone to ukraine. your own intelligence service reports that while a military attack against estonia from russia is unlikely in the short term, in the mid—to—long term, russia's belligerence and foreign policy ambitions have significantly increased the security risks here in estonia. yes, and that's why it's very, very important that we try to stop this cycle of aggression, because if ukraine falls and russia wins this war, then there will be more atrocities all across the world. and i'm not talking about europe only, but more widely. but i wanted to say about those ammunition, i mean, we saw that the war is coming already injanuary, or actually before that. and what we did, we made very important decisions on 18 january.

i remember we went into procurement to procure ammunition, all the things that we needed, because when we saw that the war is coming, then everybody will do that. and therefore, we are actually in much better position than everybody else. right, but you have an enormous strain of ukrainian refugees. you're a very small population, 1.3 million. again, per capita, i believe you've taken more ukrainian refugees than anybody else. it's hit your economy hard, this war. energy prices surged last year, inflation went beyond 20%. the opposition parties are saying it is time for kaja kallas to look after estonians and stop being so preoccupied with ukrainians. yeah, and i'm happy to say that the electricity prices have dropped 74% compared to last august, and inflation is 4.6%, so we are the 19th in europe. and our inflation is going down, while in other

countries it's going up. so, actually — and by the way, we have a huge proportion of ukrainian refugees, you're right. but what is interesting, it hasn't really increased much of our unemployment. in terms of refugees, like 52% of them are working also in estonia. so, i mean, we are a small country with a big heart. we have helped ukrainians and ukrainian refugees here, and i think we survive. do you have a big heart for the 25%, roughly, of your population for whom russian is a first language? because they don't feel it. well, why do you say they don't feel it? imean... well, i can go through a list of reasons they don't feel it. many of them feel that your determination to take down all of those soviet memorials to the war dead from the soviet past, that that's a provocation to those

who speak russian first. they also look at the fact you've now banned all motor vehicles from entering estonia with russian plates. in fact, russian opposition people are saying that's a stupid thing to do because there are many exiles here who hate putin. but you... ..are mixing two things. the russians who are living here, we call them russian—speaking estonians, and russia aside. so what i want to say first, in 1920s, the russian population in estonia was 3%, and by the end of occupation, it was 30. so it is not that... are you saying they're not therefore real estonians? no, no, i'm saying that those who want to be with estonia, who consider estonia their home, have applied for citizenship, have learned our language and are part of our society, which is majority of our russian—speaking population... but of course, there are also those who don't feel that well.

and what is interesting is that those people who are much closer to the russian border, they can see very well that the life on the other side in russia is so much worse, that they don't really believe the propaganda because they know it's better in estonia. but for us, it is important. just one thing we ask — learn our language, because this is how we live here and this is the way to integrate those. and also what i want to stress is that even if we have different history, we have a common future, and we concentrate on that. prime minister, how embarrassing has it been for you as an arch supporter of ukraine, somebody determined to maintain tough sanctions against putin, to encourage him to roll back his invasion of ukraine, how embarrassing has it been for the estonian media to reveal that your own husband had business interests

inside russia long after the february 2022 invasion? first of all, my husband does not have russian ties or has not had russian ties. this is very important. what he did, he had a minority shareholding in a company that helped one estonian company to end its business in russia. yes, active inside russia, trading in russia until at least november 2020. no, no, not trading in russia. so, helping this other estonian company. but when i learned about this, of course it's embarrassing. and when i learned about this, i talked to my husband, and of course even this helping of this estonian company ended. but hadn't your husband told you about it during the course of his business? he had this company, stark. they were involved with metaprint, the actual company that was doing the business in russia. i believe you'd given your

husband a loan which he had then used for his investments. surely you discussed what these investments were? no, i mean, i've been given... i gave a loan to another finance investment company — so that was another business — because my husband was an investment banker. itjust seems a little unlikely to many estonians that you had no idea of any of these business connections. but is it? i mean, i'm notan actor. i wouldn't be such an ardent supporter of ukraine and saying to our companies that you have to find your moral compass to end any ties with russia when i had known that my own husband is actually helping one estonian company on the russian territory. i mean, i couldn't have done that. were you angry with him? of course! and how has that resolved itself? well, the next day... when i learned about this,

the next day they declared that they're going to stop this business, and friday after this wednesday, they also... i mean, he sold his business at all. and now, right now, i have a husband back home that every day is really, really feeling so guilty about all these things. but he's not a politician, so he didn't see this threat from the helping of the estonian company, because what he said... i'm just saying what he said to me — he said to me, "for me, it is important that we don't fuel the russian war machine so we don't leave one single euro, dollar, pound or rouble on the soil of russia or to the russian companies." well, you talk about the embarrassment. the bottom line is that the opposition called for your resignation. the president of estonia rebuked you, saying that it had damaged trust in politics. and according to the state

broadcaster, in their most recent poll, 69% of estonians thought that you should step down. have you considered your resignation? it's politics, this is... 69% of people wanting you to go, having not so long ago won an election with your coalition. it's a disaster. but, no, if you turn this around, if you look at the polls that ask, "who do you support as the prime minister?", then my support has always been around 30%. so if you turn this around, it hasn't really changed much, has it? have you considered resigning over this? because you're clearly embarrassed. of course. of course i have thought about this, but i've been speaking to different people, and i couldn't really defend myself if i stepped down. then this would stick to me. but, i mean, i haven't done anything wrong. my stance is exactly the same

as it was before, and proof of that is also my husband's dealings with the shareholding and selling the shareholding immediately when this came out. i want to end where i began. i described you as one of the staunchest, strongest supporters of ukraine amongst european leaders. i therefore want to ask you how you think right now this war is going to end. in the past, you've staked out a maximalist position in terms of ukraine's victory. you've said that russia must withdraw from every inch of ukraine, just as it withdrew from afghanistan in the 1980s. i would put it to you that at some point it may be people like you will have to consider something short of that maximalist position. have you begun to do that? no — and you know why? because we have to believe in ukraine's victory. otherwise, i mean, this

is what russia is hoping for, to see cracks in our unity and also to see cracks in our belief in ukraine's victory, because when we don't believe any more, then we don't support ukraine. hundreds of thousands of ukrainians have died in this war. ukraine right now insists that it will recover all of its territory. but this war, which right now appears to have no end, is costing the most terrible price. it is — but again, i come to our own history. of course, every child knows that war is bad and peace is good. but there's also difference between peace and peace. you in uk after the second world war, you had peace, which meant that you built up your country, nobody died because of the regime, whereas here we didn't have war after the second world war, we had peace. but what it meant was mass deportations of our people

to siberia, where they died, it meant mass killings of people, it meant the suppressing of our culture, trying to erase our language. all of this was here when there was peace. so even if there's peace which is not sustainable, it doesn't mean that the human suffering will stop. and that is what we have to do in order to stop this. prime minister kaja kallas, thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you. hello there. storm agnes is going to be bringing some very strong winds to irish sea coasts during wednesday, could bring some disruption. at the moment, agnes is rapidly developing underneath this

powerful atlantic jet stream. there's some evidence that we might see a sting jet form — that's something that really accelerates the winds — and at its peak, well out to sea, the winds are modelled to reach 120mph in gusts, so some ferocious winds. they will stay well away from land. and, actually, by the time agnes works across the uk, it will be working in as a weakening area of low pressure. still, though, the winds strong enough to bring some disruption, as we'll see in a moment. now, if you're outside at the moment, you might notice the winds picking up across wales and southwest england. otherwise, it's a breezy kind of night. quite cool for scotland, where there'll be 1—2 showers, the weather turning increasingly mild as we head into the first part of wednesday morning for england and wales. now, the strongest winds from agnes will be working through irish sea coasts where gusts could reach 60s—70s of miles an hour, strong enough to bring some disruption. it will be a bright start with some sunshine for scotland, and eastern england having a relatively quiet day. it's through the afternoon that we get this swathe of really strong winds moving in, the winds strong enough to bring some power cuts,

maybe some transport disruption, ferries perhaps running with cancellations or delays. and we'll probably see some trees being blown over as well due to those strong winds. and the winds continue overnight across northern england and scotland, so very windy here wednesday night before agnes starts to clear out into the norwegian sea. we then get a ridge of high pressure just ahead of the next system, and what that means is actually, for thursday, many of us, at least for a time, will see a slice of dry weather with a bit of sunshine as agnes works away before the next band of rain works in through the course of the afternoon. some of the rain could be quite heavy in the west thursday afternoon. continues to be mild — temperatures about 16—20 celsius, and another relatively mild day on the cards for friday. there will be lots of showers around for scotland, northern ireland, the far north of england, perhaps merging together across the far north of scotland to bring some wetter weather, whereas across southern areas of england and wales, it looks like being a dry day on friday with some warm spells of sunshine

— temperatures 16—21. what about the weekend weather prospects? well, things look quite unsettled at the moment. we're looking at the risk of showers or some longer spells of rain for many of us this weekend, but it will stay on the mild side. bye for now.

live from london.

this is bbc news. a new yorkjudge finds that donald trump "repeatedly" exaggerated his wealth, sometimes by hundreds of millions of dollars to banks and insurers. mps warn that the number of children missing school in england is now "a crisis" that "needs to be tackled with bigger, bolder national measures". and the british museum appeals to the public to find missing historical artefacts after around 2,000 items were reported "missing, stolen or damaged" over a period of time. hello, i'm sally bundock. a new york court has ruled that donald trump committed fraud by repeatedly overstating the value of his business assets. the judge said the former president exaggerated his

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