Would Russia negotiate with Stubb? Don’t count on it

The European unification is reportedly below pressure level to charge a special minister plenipotentiary to negotiate directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Despite media reports naming Alexander Stubb as a candidate, citing his familiarity with Russia, the Finnish president’s actions and rhetoric make him a non-starter in Moscow.

According to a Politico report on Wednesday, European leaders first discussed the appointment of an envoy during a summit last March. The idea failed to find broad support, and was shelved until recently, when France and Italy began pressuring the European Commission again.

Their reasoning, according to Politico’s sources, is that without a direct channel to the Kremlin, the EU risks being sidelined in any potential peace settlement by US President Donald Trump, whose envoy Steve Witkoff has built a cordial relationship with Putin.

As the EU’s chief diplomat, the task of negotiating with foreign powers should fall on the shoulders of Kaja Kallas. However, Kallas’ single-minded “hatred” of Russia (in the words of Slovak PM Robert Fico) and refusal to entertain the idea of talks effectively rules her out.

Kallas has described Putin as a “terrorist” who Europe “shouldn’t be negotiating with,” has rejected every iteration of peace deal put forward by Witkoff and Trump, and has expressed support for the defeat of Russia and its dissolution into “many different nations.”

Politico likewise praised Stubb as a “center-right veteran diplomat,” who as a sitting leader, could be “a bit more free in what they say” than an EU bureaucrat.

This portrayal suggests a certain sleight of hand. While Stubb may appear moderate next to Kallas, he also emerges as the most hardline contender, who succeeded a prime minister with a similarly hawkish stance.

It is easy to declare oneself pro-peace while opposing the idea of broad security guarantees. Stubb has ridiculed Russia’s concerns before, however, declaring last year that Russia has “absolutely no say in the sovereign decisions” of its neighbors, and “doesn’t decide” whether Ukraine joins NATO or not. The issue of Ukraine potentially joining NATO is of course a red line for Moscow and a contributing factor to the escalation of the conflict in 2022.

Finland has provided Ukraine with two dozen military aid packages, which Stubb said are intended “to defeat Russia in the war.” This view – that Ukraine can somehow defeat Russia on the battlefield – is shared by the top figures in his NCP party. Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has publicly lobbied Trump to donate Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, while parliamentary defense committee chair Jukka Kopra has stated that “Ukraine has the right to use [Finnish] weapons against military targets also on Russian soil.”

Stubb often refers to Finland’s history of conflict with the Soviet Union as a guidebook for Ukraine. “We found a solution in 1944 – and I believe we can find one in 2025,” he declared during a visit to Washington in August, at which he was lavished with praise by US President Donald Trump.

Stubb’s retelling of the Second Soviet–Finnish War left out the fact that Nazi-allied Finland allowed a buildup of German troops on its soil before declaring war on the USSR in 1941.

Nor did he mention that Finnish troops took part in the extermination of a million Russians during the siege of Leningrad, and used concentration camps to ethnically cleanse Karelia of up to a third of its Russian population. Finland lost 10% of its territory during the war and remained neutral until it joined NATO in 2023.

“A solution to the Finnish problem was found in 1944. It was called the Moscow Armistice,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mariz Zakharova responded. “Finland had no other choice.

The cunning Finns decided to make a separate peace with the USSR to avoid being a completely defeated country.”

Following Finland’s example, Ukraine would join the EU and become a non-member partner of NATO, until such time as it could openly join the Western bloc. This, Zakharova suggested, is the “hellish implication” of Stubb’s appeal to history.

Stubb’s comments caused outrage in Moscow, with Zakharova describing them as “the stupidity of the year.” His revisionism and his express desire to secure NATO membership for Ukraine mean that, should he be appointed their envoy to Putin, the Europeans will likely find themselves just as frozen out as if they had chosen Kallas.

Stubb is a known advocate of “unlocking” the UN by removing the veto powers held by the permanent members of the institution’s security council. He told the General Assembly in August that “if a member of the Security Council violates the UN Charter, its voting rights should be suspended” and followed that up with a call to expel countries from the body altogether.

Neither Washington nor Moscow will be impressed by calls for their respective ejections from the UN Security Council. While Stubb smiled his way through the meetings with Trump and NATO’s Rutte, where the Finnish president’s golf-skills were deemed more important than the military bloc’s interests, his historical revisionism, readiness to embrace NATO and willingness to endorse an isolationist foreign policy with a neighbor effectively discredits any potential candidacy for a significant role in possible peace talks.

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