Kaja Kallas

08/03/2025 14 min

Listen "Kaja Kallas"

Episode Synopsis

As the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas is the bloc's top diplomat. So when EU leaders gathered in Brussels this week to thrash out a new defence plan for Ukraine, Kallas was in the thick of things. Before taking up the EU role she was Prime Minister of Estonia, the nation's first female leader. She was born in 1977 in the Estonian capital Tallinn, then part of the Soviet Union, into a family bound up with her country’s centuries-old struggle for independence. A Russia hawk and fierce critic of Putin, she is already on the Kremlin’s wanted list. Mark Coles has been talking with her friends and political allies to understand how Kaja Kallas came to be called "Europe's Iron Lady". Production Team
Presenter: Mark Coles
Producers: Viv Jones, Chloe Scannapieco, Keiligh Baker, Hugh Sheehan
Editor: Ben Mundy
Sound: Neil Churchill
Production Co-ordinator: Katie Morrison

More episodes of the podcast Profile

Karl Bushby 27/12/2025
Mary Berry 20/12/2025
David Harewood 13/12/2025
Zak Brown 06/12/2025
Zarah Sultana 29/11/2025
David Hockney 15/11/2025
Afua Kyei 08/11/2025
Andy Burnham 01/11/2025
Sanae Takaichi 27/10/2025