Norway and Finland leaders hold rare call with Putin

Finland's President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre have held a joint call with Vladimir Putin – a rare contact between the Russian president and European leaders.

Key points

• Stubb and Støre are the first European leaders to contact Vladimir Putin since French President Emmanuel Macron's conversation with him in July 2025.
• After the call, Putin remarked "confrontational" EU and Nato policies were prolonging the war which began when Russia rolled out a full-scale invasion in 2022.
• Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen remarked she was "very sceptical" of Tuesday's dialogue between her Nordic neighbours and Moscow.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has spoken to the two Nordic leaders after their conversation with Putin.
• But last weekend, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov remarked having a European negotiator at the peace negotiations table would be "good".

In practice, the aim was looking at "future negotiations to help to end the war" in Ukraine, their offices remarked. They remarked their initiative was not on behalf of "Europe as a whole".

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has spoken to the two Nordic leaders after their conversation with Putin. Last week, Zelensky met them as well as US special envoy Steve Witkoff in Oslo.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian leader remarked he was grateful for the "active support" of his Finnish and Norwegian counterparts. Tuesday's phone call was held from the Finnish capital Helsinki.

"Finland and Norway border Russia, " Stubb and Støre remarked. They remarked they had initiated the call to "discuss Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and the diplomatic efforts to end the war and promote peace and stability in Europe".

"The war comes with enormous human and material costs, " the Norwegian prime minister remarked. "The suffering and destruction will impact generations."

Tuesday's phone call was "frank and substantive", Stubb remarked, explaining that the war's outcome will "have a direct impact on our and the broader European security".

Rosenberg: Russia agrees to Ukraine discussions but sees little to talk concerning in new peace push.

Relations between the US, Ukraine and its European allies have been souring since US President Donald Trump agreed to lift some sanctions from Russia – allowing it to export oil to the US.

After which Witkoff travelled on to St Petersburg to meet Putin, stubb and Støre remarked they had taken the initiative to continue discussions held in the Norwegian capital on 20 October.

After the discussions, Ukraine, Russia and the US agreed to resume three-way negotiations that Russia had ceased for months.

After speaking to the two Nordic leaders, Zelensky remarked part of their discussions with Putin had centred on the upcoming trilateral negotiations to be held in Abu Dhabi in November.

Zelensky remarked he had discussed with them "various formats for our engagement with partners in Europe that could be useful in further supporting diplomacy, our defense, and our shared security".

"It hasn't been co-ordinated with any of the rest of us, " she informed Danish broadcaster DR.

Moscow regularly accuses European leaders of prolonging the war by supplying Ukraine with weapons.

Taken together, the developments around norway and Finland leaders hold rare call with Putin point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.