Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said there was "nothing suprising" about Moscow placing her, and other high-ranking Baltic politicians, on a list of "wanted" persons on Tuesday.
"Russia's move is nothing surprising," Kallas wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "This is yet more proof that I am doing the right thing – the EU's strong support to Ukraine is a success and it hurts Russia."
In addition to Kallas, Estonian Secretary of State Taimar Peterkop and Lithuanian Culture Minister Simonas Kairys are also on the Russian Interior Ministry's list.
The declaration is seen as symbolic since none of the politicians is expected to travel to Russia any time soon.
The Russian authorities blame the Baltic officials for the demolition of memorials to Soviet soldiers.
"These people are responsible for decisions that are actually tantamount to desecration of historical memory," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the TASS news agency.
But affected officials sloughed it off, suggesting they considered the designation a badge of honour.
"I am glad that my work to remove the ruins of Sovietization has not gone unnoticed," Kairys commented on his inclusion on the list.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, speaking to the BNS news agency in Vilnius on Tuesday about Kallas' designation, described Russia's "political assessment" as a "kind of honour for people who support Ukraine and support the fight of good against evil."
In her post on X, Kallas said: "The Kremlin now hopes this move will help to silence me and others – but it won't. The opposite. I will continue my strong support to Ukraine. I will continue to stand for increasing Europe's defence."
Russia said it is serious about the "crimes" these leaders are alleged to have committed.
"You have to answer for crimes against the memory of those who liberated the world from Nazism and fascism. And this is just the beginning," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram, explicitly referring to Kallas and Peterkop.
In the summer of 2022, a few months after the start of the all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine, Estonia demolished a Soviet war memorial - a replica of a T-34 tank with a red Soviet star - in the town of Narva on the border with Russia.
In 2007, the relocation of a bronze statue, another Soviet war memorial, from a park in Tallinn to the outskirts of the city sparked days of protests. One person was killed in the riots and more than 1,000 people were detained. Angry Russian-speaking Estonians said that the removal of the monument erased their history.
A number of monuments from the Soviet era were also dismantled in Lithuania following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
