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President of Finland Alexander Stubb said Sunday that negotiators are closer than at any point during the war to securing a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, crediting U.S. diplomacy and pressure from sanctions on Russian oil as talks enter what he described as their most difficult final stage.
“We’re probably closer [to reaching a peace agreement] than we have been at any time of this war,” Stubb said on The Sunday Briefing.”
He added that President Donald Trump’s special envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, have spent the past several weeks “working around the clock” to narrow differences between the two sides.
Stubb pointed to unity among Western allies following talks last weekend in Berlin, citing two key takeaways.
“One was that Europe, Ukraine and the United States were united in our resolve to get a just and lasting peace… and the second one was the idea of security guarantees for Ukraine. So we’re sort of almost there, but the most difficult 5% are still left,” he said.
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Despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hardline public rhetoric, Stubb suggested Moscow’s negotiators may be more flexible behind closed doors, calling the contrast between public messaging and private talks “quite typical in diplomacy.”
Still, he warned that Russia’s main goal remained to “basically destroy the existence of Ukraine.”
The Finnish president said he spoke with Trump several weeks ago and has recently been working closely with Witkoff and Kushner as talks have intensified, adding that “the balance of carrot and stick in the negotiations is working.”
“The Russian economy is actually not doing that well. They have zero growth. They are out of reserves. They have high interest rates and high inflation. And it’s not improving,” Stubb said.
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He argued that U.S. sanctions targeting Russian oil giants Lukoil and Rosneft have been particularly effective.
If Russia were to flatly reject a peace framework agreed upon by Ukraine, Europe and the U.S., “that’s when it’s time to hike up the sanctions,” Stubb said, “because they work.”