A day after they played together in Florida, President Trump said he was “angry” at the Kremlin and threatened to impose sanctions on Russia’s oil clients.
Hours after they sat next to each other at the funeral of Pope Francis in the city of the Vatican, Trump lit up in Moscow to shoot missiles in civil areas of Ukraine. “Too many people are dying!” Trump wrote in Truth Social on Saturday, again threatening Russia with sanctions if Kremlin tied him.
It could be a coincidence. Or Mr. Trump could be listening to the president of Finland, Alexander Stubb, who has become a prominent voice of the smallest nations in Europe in the Russian war against Ukraine.
In an interview with the New York Times on Sunday, Mr. Stubb minimized its Trump effect. He pointed out that President Emmanuel Macron de France and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Great Britain led European efforts, and his role was simply “pushing things in the right direction” and “trying to connect the points.”
But Mr. Stubb’s country includes the danger of peace negotiations for Ukraine, perhaps better than any other. After the wars with the Soviet Union in the 1940s, Finland resigned from land to Moscow, agreed neutrality and accepted limits in his military, removing under the thumb of the Kremlin to some degree for decades.
Mr. Stubb does not want Ukraine to suffer the same destination.
He declined to detail his conversations with the US president, although he said he left the Vatican city feeling “a little more optimistic” about the perspectives of peace. But Mr. Trump, after his two recent meetings, has almost repeated the same message as Mr. Stubb has been publicly sending: President Vladimir V. Putin de Russia “will play a cat and mouse game until the end” and is chaining Washington, demanding that Mr. Trump increase the pressure through “Power and sanctions.”
“Everyone has to understand that the only thing Putin understands is power,” said Stubb. “I mean, there is a reason why Finland has one of the strongest military in Europe, and the reason is not Sweden.”
Russia shares a border of 835 miles with Finland, and according to the count of Mr. Stubb, he has fought 30 wars or skirmishes against the Finns since the years 1300. An ancestor of his co -author of the declaration of independence of Finland in 1917, after a century that Finland was part of the Russian empire, which followed several centuries of government by several centuries Sweden.
Mr. Stubb, who assumed the position last year and previously served as prime minister, warned that Putin would do the opposite of what he says.
“That is in the soul and spirit of Russian international relations,” he said.
A center -right leader, Mr. Stubb, 57, is uniquely equipped to appeal to Mr. Trump. He is a 6 -foot and 2 -inch triathonist and triathlete who speaks English fluently with just a slight accent, plays at the almost professional golf level he competed in the Finnish national team and brings a central look at his position. He spent a year of high school in Daytona Beach and graduated from the University of Furman in South Carolina. He studied in a golf scholarship, becoming an “A -American” Avid “self -written.
Despite stating that playing a role, Mr. Stubb has inserted himself in the Ukraine peace process in what he calls “a humble way,” regularly talking to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and other European leaders, in addition to Mr. Trump. He says that the hoses of his special understanding of the United States and Russia can be helpful.
He said that sending felt the exasperation of Mr. Trump.
“The president is running out of patience, and now we have seen statements that are quite difficult for Putin and Russia,” Stubb said. “So I hope the Kremlin understands that you do not play with President Trump.”
Hey said that Trump’s patience decrease could “actually move things in the right direction” by forcing Russia to stop delaying.
But it is known that Trump abruptly changes his public positions, often aligning them with people he has recently consulted. And despite their warnings to Kremlin, they have followed him with greater pressure on Mr. Putin, instead of aiming much of his anger to Mr. Zensky.
Putin declared a unilateral fire of 72 hours on Monday in what seemed to be an response to Trump’s outburst. But the measure remained well below 30 days high the unconditional fire proposed by the United States and Ukraine.
In many ways, Finland is seen in the problems of Ukraine.
The Soviet leader Joseph Stalin invaded Finland in 1939, waiting for a quick conquest in what was known as the winter war. Vasly overcome and surpassed, the Finns set up a fierce resistance for more than three months, attacking the Soviet forces not prepared in skis and cut them out of the forest.
The war ended in a 1940 treaty that forced Finland to give up approximately 10 percent of his land to Moscow, including much of Karelia, where Mr. Stubb’s father and grandfather were born. That territory is still part of Russia today.
The Finns joined the invasion of the Soviet Union of Nazi Germany in 1941 to claim their territory, but then lost it again in 1944. They followed the agreements that restricted the military force of Finland and prevented that powers align.
For the next 47 years, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Finland retained its independence and capitalist system, but remained restricted by Moscow in foreign and defense policy. The Finnish media abstained to a large extent of criticizing the Soviet Union. The country could not join NATO or develop an underwater fleet.
The situation of Finland is close to an awkward existence of defending to a nearby superpower in foreign affairs, a package contained as “Finland”.
He thought it restricted the autonomy of Finland and ties with the west, “Finland” proved to be better than the post -war destiny of nearby Baltic Nations, which Moscow in the Soviet Union, or the countries of the Warsaw Pact, what remained.
“It is an uncomfortable place to be, but it was a successful strategy in all its discomfort,” Stubb said.
Only in this way, he is determined not to let Ukraine be forced to a similar role.
“I would never give another state the situation of a larger player that determines some of the key elements of who you are as a country,” he said, asking the Europeans and US to “help the Ukrainians in little as much as possible in this place possible.”
American negotiators have presented their proposed scheme of a peace agreement, which includes the American recognition of Crimea as Russian territory, he said, and Ukraine and the Europeans responded with a counterproposal, which Moscow rejected.
“What I suggest now is that we need to re -package the thesis of two proposals in something that gives the opportunity to reach an agreement at this time,” said Stubb.
The status of state consists of land, sovereigns and independence, he said, and Finland lost two of the three in the 1940s. Hey said that Whited Ukraine maintained all three, but accepted that he could have to make commitments in the territory, reflecting the realities of the battlefield.
“If we get at least two of the three for Ukraine, I think it’s great,” he said. “But Finland will never recognize any of the areas that Russia has attached this war since Ukraine.”
He said he believed that “a little creative writing” could be recruited to stop the murder in Ukraine, only reflecting differentials such as the will of the United States to recognize crime as Russian and the European refusal to do so in separate annexes. At some point, he added, Ukraine and Russia will need to negotiate directly.
“At this time, political, the key is to maximize the pressure on Putin,” he said.
He said that security guarantees for Ukraine should include putting kyiv “to teeth”, so it could be a repeated attack of Moscow. Then, he said, Europe should provide a primary security guarantee with a “support from the United States” how it looks, he admitted, is an uncle. A filtered draft of the original proposal of the United States published by Reuters suggested that the guarantors would be mainly European and would not mention the participation of the United States.
Mr. Stubb’s approach is a deviation from his predecessor, Sauli Niinisto, sometimes called “Putin Whisperer.”
Mr. Niinisto played ice hockey with the Russian president and presented himself as a mediator, host of Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump for his first summit in Helsinki in 2018. The invasion of Ukraine of Mr. Putin de Ukraine in 2022 made that unsustainable approach among the Finmos, which he widely sympathized with the situation of Ukraine and his situation of Ukraine Nation in 2023 in response.
“Times are changing a change,” Stubb said.
The Finnish leader has shown skill in his treatment with Trump.
He sacrificed himself to supply the United States with Rompehielos, which Finland produces and Washington needs to compete in the Arctic. He has proposed that Europe buy more American liquefied natural gas even for the commercial balance with Washington. He has played his time in South Carolina, meeting with Senator Lindsey Graham, a republican of that state, and having dinner with the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, native of the State.
And has sacrificed publicly positive words about Trump.
Mr. Stubb understands that for his nation or 5.6 million people, surpassed by Russia for more than 25 to 1, foreign policy is not a game.
“For a small country like Finland, who lives with a larger place like Russia, it is often about survival,” he said. “Then, for us, foreign policy is real. It is existential.”
