President Alexander Stubb of Finland and Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday from Helsinki, the Finnish president’s office said in press release 66/2026. Stubb and Støre initiated the call, which followed up their meeting in Oslo on October 20 and was held in consultation with Ukraine. Its aim, the release said, was to convey messages directly to Putin about future negotiations to end the war, and it was related to the upcoming meetings to be held in Abu Dhabi.
The two leaders spoke as heads of their own countries and not on behalf of Europe as a whole, the release said. Both countries border Russia and remain firm supporters of Ukraine, and Stubb and Støre told Putin that their longstanding support for Ukraine will continue, that the war must end and that negotiations must resume. They also raised stability and predictability in the Baltic Sea region and the High North. “The discussion was frank and substantive. We are neighbouring countries to Russia. The outcome of this war will have a direct impact on our and the broader European security. Ending the war requires direct discussions,” Stubb said. Støre said the two stressed the importance of de-escalation.
Western European leaders have mostly shunned direct contact with Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Reuters reported, and the last such contact to be widely reported was President Emmanuel Macron’s call in July 2025, according to Sweden Herald’s account of the Bloomberg News report that first flagged Tuesday’s call. The timing places the call inside an active negotiation sequence: Stubb and Støre met US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo last week, Witkoff then met Putin in St. Petersburg, and the Kremlin said after those talks that Russia was willing to resume US-mediated peace talks with Ukraine in November, Reuters reported. No agreement or new proposal was announced from Tuesday’s call itself.