(23 Jun 2022)
FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4385415
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tallinn, Estonia - 22 June 2022
1. Wide, interview with Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas
HEADLINE: The AP Interview: Estonian PM on Russian threat
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Kaja Kallas, Estonian Prime Minister:
"I've heard talks that, you know, there is no threat anymore because they have exhausted themselves. No, they haven't."
3. AP reporters
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Kaja Kallas, Estonian Prime Minister:
"They have plenty of troops still who can come (to fight) - they are not counting the lives that they are losing. They are not counting the artillery that they are losing there. So, I don't think that we should underestimate them in the longer term to still keep this up all the time."
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Harriet Morris, Associated Press:
"It appears quite likely that Ukraine will be give the EU candidacy in the upcoming meeting in Brussels. How likely do you think this is?
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Kaja Kallas, Estonian Prime Minister:
"Fingers crossed. I hope so. I think we have come a long way and we have had such intense discussions with the members of the European Union, some countries that were very skeptical two months ago. And I'm happy to say and to hear different signals coming from different member states regarding this, that they are on board."
7. Wide, interview
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Kaja Kallas, Estonian Prime Minister:
"We have done the same mistake already three times saying that, you know, negotiations, negotiated peace is the goal. And we have seen that every next time, the only thing that Putin hears from this is that 'I can do this because no punishment will follow'. And every time, every next time will be with more human suffering than the last one was. So, I think for us, it is important to not make that mistake again like we did in Crimea, Donbas, Georgia."
9. AP reporters
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Kaja Kallas, Estonian Prime Minister:
"We have to have strategic patience when it comes to sanctions. It was clear from the start that sanctions is an economic tool that is in the hands of the European Union. We are not a military alliance. This is the only tool that we really have. But it has effect over time."
11. AP reporters
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Kaja Kallas, Estonian Prime Minister:
" I still think that, you know, the effects should be felt by the Russian population as well, because if you look, the support for Putin is very high. And also, not even Putin, but also for the war crimes, you know, they are inciting genocide, and the soldiers are following this. They are bragging about this to their wives and to their mothers. And if the wives and mothers say that this is okay, what you are doing there. I mean, this is also the war that Russia and Russian people are holding up in Ukraine."
++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
The West should not underestimate Russia's military capabilities in Ukraine, Estonia's leader told The Associated Press, saying that as the war enters its fifth month, President Vladimir Putin's forces are in it for the long haul.
Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said in an interview Wednesday that Europe should ensure that those committing war crimes and attempted genocide are prosecuted, noting that Putin escaped punishment for annexing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and supporting an insurgency in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region that killed over 14,000 people even before this year's war began.
"And every time, every next time will be with more human suffering than the last one was," she said.
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