WASHINGTON — Finnish President Alexander Stubb has emerged as a key player in efforts to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, gaining influence after bonding with President Donald Trump over their shared love of golf.
Minutes after a four-hour meeting at the White House with Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and several other European leaders on Monday, Stubb spoke to NBC News about the discussions.
“What we have agreed on is to work on European and American security guarantees, essentially, which will be secure from the European perspective, coordinated with the Americans,” Stubb said. “It’s us who decide what kind of security guarantees we put up for Ukraine, not the Russians.”
He responded firmly to Russia’s immediate rejection of the idea that those security guarantees might include a NATO presence.
“Russia doesn’t decide on that,” Stubb said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Stubb, whose country joined NATO in 2023 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the year before, said the leaders agreed Monday that providing security guarantees for Ukraine was among their top priorities. They also discussed a potential bilateral meeting between Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, followed by a trilateral meeting including Zelenskyy, Putin, and Trump.
For Stubb, Russia’s war in Ukraine is deeply personal. Both his father and grandfather were born in cities ceded to Russia after Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s 1939 invasion of Finland. That history shapes his commitment to Ukraine. Until Russia’s invasion, Finland, which shares more than 800 miles of border with Russia, had remained neutral for decades, including during the Cold War.
Stubb described Finland as a regional “security provider,” citing its mandatory military service, large reserve forces, and advanced arsenal. “We have over 60 F-18s. We just bought 64 F-35s. We have long-range missiles, air, land and sea, and we have the largest artillery in Europe, together with Poland,” he said.
Finland and other European countries at the White House meeting — including Britain, France, Germany, Italy, as well as the heads of the European Commission and NATO — are part of the Coalition of the Willing, which also held a virtual meeting on Tuesday. Stubb said the group has been working on strategies to secure Ukraine and instructed their militaries and civil servants to produce a plan as early as next week.
A location for a potential meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy has not yet been confirmed, though Stubb suggested Switzerland. “Geneva could work actually,” he said. “I think that would be neutral territory for it.” The goal is for the meeting to happen soon, ideally “within the next two weeks.”
Switzerland’s foreign minister, Ignazio Cassis, said Tuesday that the country would grant Putin immunity to enter for the meeting, despite an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes. Putin would face arrest in most other European nations that observe the ICC’s jurisdiction.
Stubb first gained Trump’s attention during a round of golf in West Palm Beach, Florida, in March, when they played together at one of Trump’s courses and Trump gave him a new set of clubs.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump later asked Stubb over lunch if Putin could be trusted. Stubb told him “you cannot.” Hours later, Trump publicly criticized Putin for the first time over his refusal to agree to a cease-fire with Ukraine.
The Journal also reported ongoing informal calls and texts between the two leaders, with Trump sometimes consulting Stubb before speaking with Putin. Zelenskyy has publicly thanked Stubb for helping him build a connection with Trump following their famously tense Oval Office meeting in February.
Stubb said he has also helped Trump understand the scale of Putin’s potential territorial ambitions. “For an American audience,” he told NBC News, “the best way to explain it is that if you take the relative land mass of what Russia wants right now from Ukraine, it would be a little bit like you giving up Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, even Virginia, and then bumping into Maryland.”
