Trump is the only one who can force Putin to the negotiating table, says the Finnish president

Donald Trump is “the only one who can force” Russian leader Vladimir Putin to sit down at the negotiating table over the war in Ukraine, Finland’s president told the BBC.

Alexander Stubb also said that Finland will never recognize occupied Crimea as part of Russia and that he wants to ensure that Ukraine becomes a member of the EU and hopefully a member of NATO after the war is over.

BBC Radio 4’s Today program spoke to President Stubb ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s meeting with Trump at the White House on Friday, where he told the US President: “I think we can end this war with your help.”

Trump, meanwhile, said Putin had agreed to meet face-to-face with him in Hungary.

The US leader said on Friday that Putin “wants to end it. I think President Zelensky wants to end it. Now we have to get it done”.

Zelensky said at the White House that Ukraine was ready to negotiate in any format and wanted peace, but argued that Putin should be “pressured” to end the war.

in August Trump and Putin met in Alaska for a summit meeting that did not lead to a breakthrough or led to a new meeting with Zelensky’s participation.

Stubb said Trump once asked him — during a golf game — if he could trust Putin; and Stubb’s answer was no.

“What we need is not so much the power of the carrot to convince Russia to sit at the negotiating table, but rather the stick that will bring them.

“So you have to force Russia to the table for peace negotiations, and that’s the deal that President Trump is trying to make.

He said Trump “was giving President Putin the carrot, and the carrot was in Alaska, and of course now, if you look at the language that he’s put out lately, there’s been more of a stick.”

Stubb was optimistic about Trump’s abilities, saying he believed peace talks had probably made more progress in the past eight months during Trump’s second term than in the previous three years.

Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Stubb said Finland would never recognize Crimea or the Donetsk or Luhansk regions as Russian. Russia controls 70% of Donetsk and almost all of neighboring Luhansk.

He said that “the only ones who can make a decision on the land issue are the Ukrainians themselves.”

“I want to make sure that Ukraine, when this war is over, maintains its independence, maintains its sovereignty — in other words, becomes a member of the EU and hopefully a member of NATO — and also maintains its territorial integrity. That’s what we’re all fighting for right now,” Stubb said.

Trump said in August that there would be no “Ukraine entry into NATO” as part of a peace settlement.

The US president previously floated the idea that there could be some “land swaps” in a future peace deal, but then, in September, said Kiev could “take back all of Ukraine in its original form.”

When asked why Trump had apparently changed his tune, Stubb said it was because Russia was not making progress — it had only seized 1 percent of Ukrainian territory in the past 1,000 days. Ukraine also managed to push back, he said.

Stubb said Russia’s economy – smaller than Italy’s – was suffering, with the country’s reserves depleted, growth “almost around zero” and inflation rising to between 10% and 20%.

Stubb said economic threats should be used to force Russia to intervene, most notably giving Ukraine 200 billion euros (£173 billion) worth of frozen Russian assets as a loan that would remain there if Russia did not pay compensation after peace talks.

He also wanted to see an end to Russian oil and gas exports to Europe, which have fallen by 80%. Sanctions could be imposed on countries that buy Russian oil and gas, he said, in addition to the 19th European sanctions package targeting Russia.

Stubb said that “all of Putin’s strategic games have been a total failure.” Russia failed in its attempt to take over Ukraine, divide Europe and split NATO, with two new members added instead, Finland and Sweden.

He said the European “coalition of the willing” was ready to provide security guarantees to Ukraine, with key air, sea and intelligence assistance.

But they needed support from the US, particularly in air defense, intelligence and operations, he said.

Stubb said he hoped to see some results from a two-phase peace process — the first a ceasefire to stop the killings and the second an expanded peace process — “in the coming days and weeks.”

“We will continue to work on it. The key is to engage and try to find solutions and be pragmatic. In foreign policy, you always have to deal with the world as it is, not as you would like it to be, but let’s have peace.”