Latest news with #Stubb
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Donald Trump is losing patience with Russia, says Finnish leader
Donald Trump is losing patience with Vladimir Putin, Finland's president has said after a lengthy conversation with his US counterpart. Alexander Stubb said Trump and Putin, who are scheduled to speak by telephone on Monday, must not decide the fate of Ukraine over the head of its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Stubb also said there was a chance, depending on how the phone call goes, that the US senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal would introduce into Congress this week a sanctions package to make Russia's finances untenable. Stubb has been in near daily contact with Graham, who describes the sanctions package as 'bone-crushing'. At a security conference in Estonia, Stubb said: 'If we were to pull it together, we could say that Zelenskyy is patient and President Trump is starting to be impatient, but in the right direction, that is, towards Russia.' Stubb said threatening sanctions and not implementing them would not cause a credibility problem as long as the west was making Putin react. It is widely expected that Graham, who discussed his sanctions package with European foreign ministers last week, will adapt the bill's provisions so it is aimed at foreign firms that import Russian energy. Graham, a Trump loyalist, is portraying his sanctions as an adjunct to Trump's tariffs policy and not an alternative. The initial package contained plans to impose 500% tariffs on the goods of any country trading in energy with Russia, a blunderbuss style of policy Trump has already reversed in his trade war. Stubb said any European contact with Putin would be through the E3 leadership of Britain, France and Germany. 'At the top level we should not go solo,' he said. Stubb, one of the small group of European leaders with the ear of Trump, said he had been using his influence to persuade the president to revise his view of Russia's economic and military strength. At the Lennart Meri security conference in Tallinn he disclosed that in his conversation with Trump on Saturday he had tried to explain that Russia was no longer a great power, 'certainly not economically'. He added: 'It is smaller than Italy, slightly larger than Spain [in terms of its economy]. Militarily it wanted to deny the independent sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine three years ago. It has advanced less than one percentage point this year, and its interest rate is over 20% and its reserves are out. 'So it is not a country which can be seen as a big power any more. These are the kind of messages that you have to convey. It is not an easy game, but you just have to keep on engaging the American administration. 'Trump's worldview is not far from what we saw in the 19th-century concert of powers – a big power era sometimes of competition and sometimes cooperation. We have to convince the US administration that free trade and common rules are better than transactional deals, and we show we are serious about defence in Europe and that we are security providers and not security consumers.' Matthew Whitaker, the US ambassador to Nato, told the conference his country was Europe's friend but warned of a smaller military presence in Europe. 'President Trump just said: enough, this is going to happen and it's going to happen now,' he said. 'This is going to be orderly, but we are not going to have any more patience for foot-dragging in this situation. We just need to work through the practical consequences.' The postponement of a US troop withdrawal announcement until after a Nato summit next month will make capability planning more difficult. Radosław Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, was one of many European leaders who accepted that the rebalancing of defence spending between Europe and the US was long overdue, adding he was grateful to Trump. He recalled what the Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto said of the Americans after Pearl Harbor – 'We have awoken a sleeping giant' – and said: 'Putin has also woken the giant. He has yet no idea how costly this is going to be. Since President Trump came to power we [Nato] have already doubled our defence spending. We are at 2% [of GDP]. 'At the next Nato summit 3.5 % on hard defence will be the new target and 1.5% for civil and cyber defence. When we have done it, we will dwarf Russia. As Europe, without the US, we are spending two and half times more than Russia on a peace footing than Russia is spending on a war footing. All it takes is to spend the money better, on the basis of learning the lessons from Ukraine and then having the will to gel this into a fighting force. We should be grateful to the US for telling it like it is.' Stubb added that in his conversations with the US administration, no one had mentioned the US leaving Nato and it was in the interest of the US to have allies in the alliance. Alar Karis, the Estonian president, revealed he sat next to Trump for two hours at the pope's funeral in Rome and was told: 'Don't worry, you are safe.' But diplomats warned the Nato summit could bring sharp disagreements over Russia strategy, with Europeans wanting to be clear that Russia posed a long-term threat, regardless of the settlement in Ukraine. It is not yet clear in what capacity Zelenskyy will attend the summit. His presence is important for leaders who do not want any peace settlement to rule out Ukrainian membership of Nato.
Indian Express
19-05-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
Donald Trump growing impatient with Russia, says Finnish President Alexander Stubb
US President Donald Trump is growing increasingly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Finland's President Alexander Stubb, who warned that tougher sanctions could be on the horizon if Russia continues to resist international pressure over Ukraine. Speaking at the Lennart Meri security conference in Tallinn, Estonia, Stubb revealed that Trump and Putin are scheduled for a phone call on Monday — a conversation that could significantly influence upcoming policy decisions. 'Zelenskyy is patient and President Trump is starting to be impatient — but in the right direction, that is, towards Russia,' Stubb said, as reported by The Guardian. According to Stubb, US Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal may soon introduce a sanctions bill targeting Russia's financial backbone. The Finnish leader said he has been in near-daily contact with Graham, who reportedly described the proposed sanctions as 'bone-crushing.' The package could specifically target foreign firms that trade in Russian energy, aligning with Trump's broader tariff strategy. An earlier draft of the bill even considered 500% tariffs on goods from countries dealing in Russian energy — a sweeping move that echoes Trump's aggressive trade tactics in the past. Stubb stressed that merely threatening sanctions, even if not immediately enforced, could still serve as a powerful diplomatic lever. Stubb disclosed details of a recent conversation with Trump in which he tried to shift the US leader's perception of Russia's power. 'It is smaller than Italy, slightly larger than Spain economically,' he said. 'Militarily, it wanted to deny the independent sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine three years ago. It has advanced less than one percentage point this year, its interest rate is over 20%, and its reserves are out.' He added, 'It is not a country which can be seen as a big power anymore.' Stubb said his goal is to persuade the American administration to view free trade and collective defense as more effective than transactional diplomacy. 'Trump's worldview is not far from the 19th-century concert of powers… We have to convince the US that we are security providers, not consumers.' Stubb emphasised that any negotiations with Putin must include Ukraine and not bypass President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 'At the top level, we should not go solo,' he said, noting that any European outreach to Moscow should be coordinated through the E3 leadership of Britain, France, and Germany. (With inputs from The Guardian)
Boston Globe
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Finnish leader warns the Kremlin: ‘You don't play with President Trump'
It could be a coincidence. Or Trump could be listening to Finland's president, Alexander Stubb, who has emerged as a prominent voice of Europe's smaller nations on Russia's war against Ukraine. In an interview with The New York Times on Sunday, Stubb downplayed his effect on Trump. He noted that President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain were leading European efforts, with his role being merely to 'nudge things in the right direction' and 'try to connect the dots.' But Stubb's country understands the peril of peace negotiations for Ukraine perhaps better than any other. After wars with the Soviet Union in the 1940s, Finland gave up land to Moscow, agreed to neutrality, and accepted limits on its military, remaining under the Kremlin's thumb to some degree for decades. Advertisement Stubb doesn't want Ukraine to suffer the same fate. He declined to detail his conversations with Trump, though he said he left Vatican City feeling 'a tad more optimistic' about the prospects for peace. But Trump, after their two recent meetings, has repeated almost verbatim the very message Stubb has been sending publicly: President Vladimir Putin of Russia will 'play a cat-and-mouse game to the bitter end' and is stringing Washington along, requiring Trump to increase the pressure through 'power and sanctions.' Advertisement 'Everyone has to understand that the only thing that Putin understands is power,' Stubb said. 'I mean, there's a reason why Finland has one of the strongest militaries in Europe, and the reason is not Sweden.' Russia shares an 835-mile border with Finland, and by Stubb's count, has fought 30 wars or skirmishes against the Finns since the 1300s. An ancestor of his co-authored Finland's declaration of independence in 1917, after a century of Finland's being part of the Russian Empire, which followed several centuries of rule by Sweden. Stubb, who took office 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, Stubb, 57, is uniquely equipped to appeal to Trump. He is a 6-foot-2 marathoner and triathlete who speaks fluent English with only a slight accent, plays near-professional-level golf — he competed on the Finnish national team — and brings a central-casting look to his position. He spent a year of high school in Daytona Beach, Fla., and graduated from Furman University in South Carolina. He studied on a golf scholarship, becoming a self-described 'avid pro-American.' Despite claiming to play a bit role, Stubb has inserted himself in the Ukraine peace process in what he calls 'a humble way,' regularly speaking with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and other European leaders, in addition to Trump. He says he hopes his special understanding of the United States and Russia can be of assistance. Advertisement He said he sensed Trump's exasperation. 'The president is running out of patience, and we've now seen statements which are quite tough on Putin and Russia,' Stubb said. 'So I just hope the Kremlin understands that you don't play with President Trump.' He said Trump's diminished patience could 'actually then move things in the right direction' by forcing Russia to stop delaying. But Trump has been known to abruptly change his public stances, often aligning them with people he has recently consulted. And despite his warnings to the Kremlin, he has not followed through with any increased pressure on Putin, instead aiming much of his ire at Zelensky. Putin declared a unilateral 72-hour cease-fire Monday, in what seemed to be a response to Trump's outburst. But the measure fell far short of the 30-day unconditional cease-fire proposed by the United States and Ukraine. US negotiators have presented their proposed outline of a peace deal, which includes US 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 repackage these two proposals into something which gives the opportunity to strike a deal right now,' Stubb said. Statehood consists of land, sovereignty, and independence, he said, and Finland lost two of the three in the 1940s. He said he wanted Ukraine to keep all three, but accepted that it might have to make compromises on territory, reflecting battlefield realities. 'If we get at least two out of the three for Ukraine, I think it's great,' he said. 'But Finland will never, ever recognize any of the areas that Russia has annexed during this war from Ukraine.' Advertisement He said he believed that 'a little bit of creative writing' could be drafted to stop the killing in Ukraine, even reflecting differences such as the US willingness to recognize Crimea 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. 'Right now, politically, the key is to maximize the pressure on Putin,' he said. This article originally appeared in
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump is "running out of patience" with Russia, Finnish president says
Finnish President Alexander Stubb has predicted that the United States may soon take tougher action against Russia if it refuses to end its war against Ukraine. Source: Stubb in an interview with The New York Times released on Tuesday 29 April, as reported by European Pravda Details: Stubb noted that due to the lack of progress in the peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, US President Donald Trump is "running out of patience, and we've now seen statements which are quite tough on Putin and Russia". "So I just hope the Kremlin understands that you don't play with President Trump," he added. The Finnish president suggested that Trump's waning patience could "actually then move things in the right direction" by pressuring Russia to stop stalling a peaceful resolution to the war. Stubb also noted that "with a little bit of creative writing", it is possible to find wording that could halt the bloodshed in Ukraine while addressing differing US and European stances on recognising the annexation of Crimea. Background: Following his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Vatican, Trump criticised Russia's latest strikes on Ukrainian cities and expressed doubts that Kremlin leader Putin wanted to end the war. He also threatened to impose sanctions on Russia. Later, Trump stated that Putin should stop the fighting and negotiate a peace deal. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Russia Today
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Ukraine could lose land to get more Western weapons
Finnish President Alexander Stubb has argued that Ukraine has to make certain concessions to Russia in order to ensure its survival and continue receiving Western military support. Moscow has dismissed any resolution of the conflict that allows Ukraine to remain a threat. On Sunday, Stubb shared his thoughts with The New York Times on how to align US President Donald Trump more closely with the positions held by Kiev and Washington's European NATO allies, as the White House seeks to mediate a compromise in the ongoing Ukraine conflict. He drew a historical parallel between Ukraine and Finland, which participated in Nazi Germany's 1941 invasion of the USSR to reclaim territory it had lost in the Winter War earlier. As a result of being on the losing side, Finland faced military restrictions and observed neutrality during the Cold War. It formally joined NATO only in 2023, after years of military cooperation with the US-led alliance. Stubb reflected on the essence of statehood, comprising land, sovereignty, and independence. He noted that Finland lost two of these three elements in the 1940s, adding, 'If we get at least two out of the three for Ukraine, I think it's great.' Earlier this month, Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky publicly rejected American proposals reported in the media. Subsequently, Kiev and its European backers crafted a counteroffer for Trump's consideration. Stubb suggested that the two plans should be 'repackaged' into a viable proposal through 'a little bit of creative writing.' If a ceasefire with Russia is achieved, Ukraine could be armed 'to the teeth' by European NATO members, with a 'backstop from the US,' he asserted. The current objective is to 'maximize the pressure' on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Stubb added. Russia perceives the Ukraine conflict as a NATO proxy war led by a Western-backed 'neo-Nazi regime' in Kiev. Moscow has repeatedly criticized the EU's continued flow of armaments to Ukraine, arguing that Western European nations appear more interested in prolonging the fighting rather than resolving the conflict diplomatically.
