A ceasefire in Ukraine is unlikely before the spring and European allies need to keep up support despite a corruption scandal which has engulfed Kiev, President Alexander Stubb of Finland told The Associated Press.
Europe, meanwhile, will require ‘’sisu,’’ a Finnish word meaning endurance, resilience and grit, to get through the winter months, he said, as Russia continues its hybrid attacks and information war across the continent.
Stubb also needs that quality as one of the key European interlocutors between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. As the leader of one of Europe's smaller countries, but one that shares a 1,340-kilometer border with Russia, he is well aware of what's at stake.
In the 1940s, after two wars with Russia, Finland lost about 10 percent of its territory to Moscow and agreed to become militarily neutral, a stance only reversed after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when the Finns joined NATO. Stubb leverages his good relationship with Trump, the two men have played golf together and speak regularly, to argue the case for Ukraine.
“I can explain to President Trump what Finland went through or how I see the situation on the battlefield, or how do you deal with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin? And then, you know, if he accepts one out of 10 ideas, that’s good,” he said.
Stubb spoke to AP Saturday at a military base north of the capital Helsinki where he observed Finnish volunteers take part in defense training. Wearing a jacket with the word “sisu” emblazoned across the back, he watched as volunteers practiced evacuating wounded soldiers from a conflict zone in freezing temperatures.
Stubb urged European leaders to look at boosting financial and military support for Kiev which is also facing creeping gains by Russia on the battlefield.
“I’m not very optimistic about achieving a ceasefire or the beginning of peace negotiations, at least this year,” Stubb said, adding it would be good to “get something going” by March.
The three big questions on the road to a ceasefire are security guarantees for Ukraine, rebuilding its economy and coming to some sort of understanding about territorial claims, he said.
To bring peace to Ukraine, Stubb said, Trump and European leaders need to maximize pressure on Russia and on Putin in order to change his strategic thinking.
To do this, he suggested using tools such as the hundreds of billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets held in Europe as collateral to fund Ukraine, as well as increasing military pressure on Moscow.
Russia is not only conducting a kinetic war in Ukraine but also a hybrid war in Europe, Stubb said, trying to destabilize Europe and “cause havoc and panic,” with attacks including arson, vandalism and propaganda.
The way to deal with those threats is to “be Finnish,” Stubb said.
“In other words, be cool, calm, collected and have a little bit of that ‘sisu.’”
