During a news conference at the Finnish presidential palace, Zelenskyy said he would be speaking directly to Trump later on Wednesday — their first direct contact since an Oval Office blowup last month — before Russia and the United States would resume talks on ending the war in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Trump said Wednesday afternoon that the call had been “very good,” and the talks were “very much on track.”
Europe, Stubb argued, should have a seat at those talks given the bloc’s huge investment in the war and stake in its outcome. “The two warring parties are Russia and Ukraine, and the mediating parties should be the United States and the European Union,” he said.
“I would encourage Europe to get its act together,” Stubb went on. “For me this means that you have the national security advisers of the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, perhaps Poland and then someone from the European institutions” present during negotiations.
As things stand, Europe’s efforts were too “à la carte, too intergovernmental,” he said, adding that he had repeatedly raised this idea with other EU leaders.
Separately, Stubb has proposed the idea of appointing a special envoy on Ukraine — similar to the role he held during Russia’s 2008 war against Georgia. But, he added, “there’s doesn’t seem to be an appetite for this right now.”