A day after they golfed together in Florida, President Trump said he was “pissed off” at the Kremlin and threatened to impose sanctions on Russia’s oil customers.
Hours after they sat next to each other at Pope Francis’ funeral in Vatican City, Mr. Trump lit into Moscow for shooting missiles at civilian areas in Ukraine. “Too many people are dying!!!” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday, again threatening Russia with sanctions if the Kremlin strung him along.
It could be a coincidence. Or Mr. 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, Mr. Stubb downplayed his effect on Mr. 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 Mr. 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.
Mr. Stubb doesn’t want Ukraine to suffer the same fate.
