Finnish President Alexander Stubb’s phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin has sparked debate in Finland and drawn mixed reactions across Europe and Russia, raising questions about diplomatic coordination, Finland’s foreign policy and Europe’s role in efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre spoke with Putin on Tuesday, following their meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo the previous week. According to the Finnish president’s office, the purpose of the call was to deliver a direct message to the Russian leader ahead of planned negotiations in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending the war.
The conversation prompted contrasting assessments in Finland, where geopolitical expert Tuomas Forsberg of Tampere University and former foreign minister Timo Soini discussed its timing and political significance on Yle’s current affairs programme A-studio on Tuesday evening.
Forsberg said there had been discussions over the previous year about the need for European leaders to contact the Kremlin. However, the expectation had been that Russia would first make a positive move that could provide a clear reason for such a conversation.
Instead, he argued, developments surrounding US-led negotiations pushed European leaders to act to ensure that their own positions, as well as Ukraine’s concerns, were communicated directly to Moscow.
The call also exposed differences among European leaders over how diplomatic engagement with Russia should be coordinated. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told public broadcaster DR that the conversation had not been coordinated with other European countries, stressing the importance of maintaining European unity. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson also said he had not been informed in advance.
Støre, however, said allied countries had received advance notice of the call. Stubb likewise maintained that all Nordic countries had been informed beforehand.
Forsberg suggested that the process had moved quickly once arrangements for the conversation began, making it difficult to secure agreement among every European government before proceeding.
“When a fire needs putting out,” he argued, swift action can be necessary, even if reaching a common position among all European states would take too long.
Former foreign minister Soini took a different view, criticising what he saw as an insufficiently coordinated approach to the conversation within Finland’s own political leadership.
Soini questioned whether the country’s constitutional arrangements for directing foreign policy had been properly followed. Finland’s foreign policy is led by the president in cooperation with the government, and he argued that this cooperation should have been clear before Stubb spoke with Putin.
He also questioned why the substance of the discussion appeared to be explained after the call rather than established through prior consultation.
“That’s not any kind of policy-setting, to say ‘I’ll make the call, and once I’ve made it, I’ll tell you what I talked about,'” Soini said.
The disagreement reflects a broader question about how Finland should conduct high-level diplomacy with Russia while remaining closely aligned with Ukraine and its European partners.
Stubb said the approximately 90-minute conversation covered possible limits on military operations, particularly attacks affecting energy infrastructure, as well as food security. These issues are closely linked to the humanitarian and economic consequences of the war, which has disrupted energy supplies and threatened essential infrastructure.
The call was prepared in consultation with Ukraine and the United States, according to Stubb. It was intended to help prepare for renewed negotiations involving Ukraine, Russia and the US in Abu Dhabi in November. Speaking at a Nordic Council meeting on Tuesday, Stubb also said European representatives would be involved in the planned discussions.
Zelensky welcomed the initiative, thanking Stubb and Støre in a post on X. He said the two leaders had made clear to Putin that Russia needed to take concrete steps to reduce attacks on Ukraine’s energy system and infrastructure.
The Kremlin also confirmed the conversation and said the three leaders had agreed to maintain direct telephone contact. However, the Russian account of the discussion presented a different emphasis from the Finnish and Norwegian statements, with Putin insisting that Russia’s interests must be taken into account in any settlement and blaming the EU and NATO for policies he said were prolonging the war.
Russian media gave the conversation extensive coverage, relying largely on official statements and comments from political figures. The business newspaper Kommersant reported that the leaders had agreed to continue direct contacts and welcomed the prospect of renewed talks involving Russia, Ukraine and the United States in Abu Dhabi.
State broadcaster Vesti stressed that Stubb and Støre had spoken as leaders of their own countries rather than as representatives of Europe as a whole. Other Russian outlets focused on the discussion of Baltic Sea stability and compliance with international maritime law.
Several Russian politicians portrayed the call as evidence that European leaders were becoming more willing to engage directly with Moscow. Grigory Karasin, head of the Federation Council’s international affairs committee, suggested that European political thinking was returning to what he described as common sense, while warning that diplomatic gestures would need to lead to concrete agreements.
Andrei Klimov, a member of Russia’s State Duma, argued that the conversation showed European countries recognised that a settlement could not be reached without Russia’s involvement. He also suggested that Finland and Norway were well placed to initiate contact because both countries share a border with Russia.
Political researcher Nikolai Toropin offered a more cautious assessment, saying the call had not produced a major breakthrough but was preferable to no contact at all.
The Russian business newspaper Vedomosti reported that Putin had accused EU and NATO countries of pursuing policies that prolonged the conflict. His position, as described in Russian media coverage, was that any resolution would have to take Russia’s stated interests into account.
The conversation also revived speculation in Russian media about whether Stubb could eventually play a mediating role in negotiations between Russia and the European Union. Reports from Germany’s Berliner Zeitung and the US-based Politico were cited in coverage of the possibility. However, Russian media group RBK noted that Putin had previously expressed a preference for former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder as a potential mediator.
The reactions underline the diplomatic challenge facing Finland and its European partners. Stubb and Støre have sought to deliver messages directly to Moscow ahead of the next round of negotiations, while continuing to support Ukraine. But disagreement over coordination with other European governments, alongside sharply different Russian and Western interpretations of the call, shows that opening a channel of communication is not the same as reaching agreement on how the war should end.
