EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has faced repeated criticism over the accuracy of her public statements. For instance, recently she claimed that Russia “invaded at least 19 countries” over the past 100 years, “none of [which] ever invaded or attacked Russia”—a claim that lacks any basis in fact. The remark, later echoed by Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, prompted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova to accuse Western Europe of “deliberately promoting the inept and uneducated” to their top government posts.