President Stubb: I’m not optimistic about a ceasefire or peace talks in Ukraine this year — maybe by February or March.
Until then, we must maximize pressure on Russia and force Putin to rethink his aim of denying Ukraine’s independence. 1/
Stubb: Ukraine needs two things: financial support, using €140-180B in frozen Russian assets as collateral to get through winter — and increased military pressure.
West must keep supplying weapons. With Putin, only the stick works, he won’t negotiate unless forced. 2/
Stubb: Sanctioning Lukoil and Rosneft was the right move — it hits Russia’s oil sector and the machine funding the war.
Ukraine now needs maximum firepower, not just Tomahawks but anything that can strike Russia’s military and defense industry. 3/
Stubb: Peace mediation requires patience and realism. I’ve focused on building security guarantees for Ukraine, exploring how a ceasefire at the contact line could start, and defining parameters for future talks.
It’s a grind — but in diplomacy, patience matters. 4/
Stubb: Zelenskyy must clear this corruption case fast, and he has already begun. War leaves no space for corruption.
Russia exploits every scandal to weaken Ukraine. I want this cleaned up so we can keep building Europe’s and America’s defense of Ukraine. 5/
Stubb: Budapest meeting cancelled because Trump and his team saw that Russia isn’t interested in a ceasefire or peace.
They saw it first in Alaska, then in Trump’s call with Putin and again when Rubio and Lavrov spoke about the agenda for a meeting. 6/
Stubb: Russia won’t come to talks voluntarily. They’ve gained 1% of Ukraine in 1,000 days while losing 5-7,000 troops a week, over a 1M killed or wounded.
They’re nowhere near Kyiv and won’t get there. What could bring them to talks? Security guarantees, the economy and land. 7/
Stubb: Nuclear use is very unlikely — China and India already pushed Putin to drop early threats. My worry is key arms-control treaties are expiring while more states can access nuclear tech.
Major powers [U.S., Russia and China] must restart nuclear-control talks. 8/
Stubb: Be Finnish — calm and firm. Russia fights a hybrid war: pushing asylum seekers over our border, damaging undersea cables and violating our airspace with drones.
Each time, we acted fast and set up NATO’s Baltic and Eastern Sentry operations and the incidents stopped. 9X
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