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".

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Producers: Viv Jones, Chloe Scannapieco, Keiligh Baker, Hugh Sheehan Editor: Ben Mundy Sound: Neil Churchill Production Co-ordinators: Katie Morrison

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Kaja Kallas