Estonia's pro-Ukrainian PM faces pressure to quit over husband's indirect Russian business links
Estonia’s strongly pro-Ukrainian prime minister is under increasing pressure to resign, after Estonian media revealed her husband’s role in a company that indirectly did business in Russia after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Estonia’s strongly pro-Ukrainian Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, came under increasing pressure Friday to resign, after Estonian media revealed her husband’s role in a company that indirectly did business in Russia after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.
Kallas, 46, one of Europe’s most outspoken supporters of Ukraine, had urged all EU companies to stop doing business with Russia after the war in Ukraine began in February 2022.
Her husband, Arvo Hallik, said Friday he would sell his 25% stake in Stark Logistics, a trucking company that worked with an Estonian company involved in Russia. He also said he would resign as the company’s chief financial officer and step down from the board.
The opposition has urged Kallas to resign, while members of the center-right, three-party coalition government have been calling for more answers regarding Hallik's activities.
“We believed that we were doing the right thing, helping the right people and saving a good Estonian company, otherwise we could not have done it,” Hallik wrote in a statement, relayed by Estonian public broadcaster ERR. Hallik insisted his wife «was not aware of my business activities.”
Stark Logistics, a trucking company, has continued to work with a company that operated in Russia.
However, KAPO, the Estonian internal security service, confirmed to ERR that companies related to the prime minister's husband had not violated sanctions.
Hallik defended his wife's loan of 350,000 euros ($377,000) to
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