Estonia condemns Red Cross statement equating strikes in Ukraine, Russia

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna strongly criticized a recent statement by the International Committee of the Red Cross condemning strikes “in Ukraine and Russia.”

He addressed the matter on his X account, Caliber.Az reports.

Russia’s deliberate attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure constitute a war crime under international humanitarian law.
These attacks aim to terrorize civilians and make them suffer.

Ukraine did not start the war; it is defending itself and paying a tremendous price.… https://t.co/fuKoKd4tYa

— Margus Tsahkna (@Tsahkna) January 15, 2026

“Russia’s deliberate attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure constitute a war crime under international humanitarian law. These attacks aim to terrorize civilians and make them suffer,” the minister wrote.

Tsahkna underscored that Ukraine did not initiate the war but is defending itself at a tremendous cost.

“Ukraine did not start the war; it is defending itself and paying a tremendous price.

An aggressor and a victim cannot be compared. The victim cannot be blamed for the consequences of the war,” he stressed.

The previous day, the International Committee of the Red Cross had posted on social media that recent strikes on critical infrastructure in Ukraine and Russia “left millions of people with almost no electricity, water, or heating in low temperatures in Kyiv, Dnipro, Donetsk, Belgorod, and other cities.” The organization described such attacks as “prohibited,” effectively equating strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure with attacks on Russian facilities.

In response, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha condemned the Red Cross statement, calling it “shameful” and denouncing the implied moral equivalence between the aggressor and the defending country as “false and unacceptable.”

By Vafa Guliyeva