{"id":31433,"date":"2026-04-18T10:53:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T10:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/31433\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T10:53:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T10:53:23","slug":"finnish-president-says-trump-envoys-push-ukraine-russia-peace-talks-much-closer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/31433\/","title":{"rendered":"Finnish president says Trump envoys push Ukraine Russia peace talks much closer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!\n <\/p>\n

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<\/a> as talks enter what he described as their most difficult final stage.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re probably closer [to reaching a peace agreement] than we have been at any time of this war,” Stubb said on The Sunday Briefing<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

He added that President Donald Trump\u2019s special envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, have spent<\/a> the past several weeks “working around the clock” to narrow differences between the two sides.<\/p>\n

\"Finnish <\/p>\n

The President of Finland, Alexander Stubb (L), and the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy (R), shake hands on September 11, 2025, in Kyiv, Ukraine.\u00a0 (Vitalii Nosach\/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Stubb pointed to unity among Western allies following talks last weekend in Berlin<\/a>, citing two key takeaways.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

PUTIN CALLS TRUMP\u2019S PEACE PLAN A \u2018STARTING POINT\u2019 AS HE WARNS UKRAINE TO PULL BACK OR FACE ‘FORCE’<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s hardline public rhetoric<\/a>, Stubb suggested Moscow\u2019s negotiators may be more flexible behind closed doors, calling the contrast between public messaging and private talks “quite typical in diplomacy.”<\/p>\n

Still, he warned that Russia’s main goal remained to “basically destroy the existence of Ukraine<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

\"Vladimir <\/p>\n

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual news conference and call-in show at Gostinny Dvor, in Moscow, on Dec. 19, 2025.\u00a0 (Pavel Bednyakov\/AP Photo)<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP<\/a><\/p>\n

He argued that U.S. sanctions targeting Russian oil giants Lukoil and Rosneft have been particularly effective.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

Max Bacall is an Associate Editor for the Flash\/Media\/Culture team at Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! President of Finland Alexander Stubb said Sunday that negotiators are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[360,3661,7310,21311,1434,330,328,325],"class_list":{"0":"post-31433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-alexander-stubb","8":"tag-alexander-stubb","9":"tag-conflicts","10":"tag-fn-flash","11":"tag-fox-news-flash","12":"tag-sanctions","13":"tag-ukraine","14":"tag-vladimir-putin","15":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116425340022696298","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}