The three Baltic nations have taken diplomatic steps to protest against Russia on February 14 a day after Moscow confirmed senior lawmakers and officials from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were placed on Russia's "wanted list" for destroying Soviet-era monuments.
Lithuania's Foreign Ministry said it had summoned a representative of Russia’s embassy in Vilnius and handed over a diplomatic note expressing "strong protest over illegal actions against Lithuanian citizens" after it was revealed that Moscow put Lithuanian Culture Minister Simonas Kairys on the wanted list.
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Estonia took a similar move, saying in a statement that its diplomats had "expressed indignation" and demanded an explanation from the Kremlin as to why Prime Minister Kaja Kallas was placed on the wanted list.
Latvia's Foreign Ministry said it was working with the European Union to address the matter -- 60 of 100 members of the previous Latvian parliament were on the list -- and was seeking to mitigate any risk that being on the wanted list posed.
"The ministry...will continue to sustain, with EU and NATO partners and with other countries in the framework of international organizations, the issue of Russia's politically motivated cases and extraterritorial targeting," the ministry said in a statement.
The Foreign Ministry in Moscow confirmed the move on February 13, though it did not say when Kallas, the first foreign leader to be put on the Interior Ministry's list, Estonian Secretary of State Taimar Peterkop, and Lithuania's Kairys were added.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and many other former Soviet republics and former Warsaw Pact members have demolished Soviet-era monuments.
The three Baltic states were annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 and occupied by Nazi Germany before falling back under Moscow's rule until regaining independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
All three are now members of the European Union and NATO, which strongly support Ukraine in its battle to repel invading Russian forces.
Kallas became Estonia's prime minister in 2021 and soon afterward pledged to dismantle as many as 400 monuments seen as an unwanted legacy of the Soviet era.
News of Moscow's move to put Kallas and other officials from EU countries on its wanted list comes almost a year after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's commissioner for children's rights, alleging responsibility for the war crime of unlawfully deporting and transferring children from Ukraine during the war.
The Russian Interior Ministry's list also includes ICC President Piotr Hofmanski.