Nordic leaders Støre and Stubb Ukraine peace mediation, Digi Mart USA News: Two sitting Nordic leaders have tried to rescue the peace process between Ukraine, Russia and the United States. Now the parties are gathering in Abu Dhabi, and the meeting is a test of the rapid mediation led by Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Finland’s President Alexander Stubb.
The two men have a long-standing friendship that began with a jogging session in Stockholm in 2008, when Stubb, then Finland’s new foreign minister, met Støre, then Norway’s foreign minister, outside the Grand Hôtel. Støre later recalled at a state visit speech that the pair once considered entering the Vasaloppet ski race and offered to pull Swedish former foreign minister Carl Bildt in a sled, an idea Bildt did not share.
Støre became Norway’s prime minister in autumn 2021, and Stubb won Finland’s presidential election in winter 2024. Over the past month their efforts for peace in Europe have made headlines.
They first hosted talks in Oslo with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, and then called Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Aftenposten political editor Kjetil B Alstadheim wrote that the duo has revived an unresolved question dating back to Russia’s full-scale invasion nearly five years ago: who speaks for Europe? On Tuesday Zelenskyy meets Nordic leaders in Denmark, while Russia, the United States and Ukraine meet at official level in Abu Dhabi.
Iro Särkkä, senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, said the initiative is not groundbreaking and does not fundamentally change the structure of the process, but is an important step forward in helping Ukrainians gain greater influence over the peace process. In her view, European allies cannot fully rely on Americans to convey decisive messages, so efforts have been made to ensure the Ukrainian voice is heard in the Kremlin.
Arkady Moshes, Russia program director at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki, said the initiative likely had good intentions but was poorly prepared and poorly executed. He said the leaders’ call with Putin still raises questions.
Tormod Heier, a professor at the Norwegian Defence University College in Oslo, argued that the one-and-a-half-hour discussion with Putin is a positive sign, while noting it is too early to say whether it will have a real effect.
Background on the leaders: Jonas Gahr Støre, born 25 August 1960, is a political scientist who previously served as secretary general of the Norwegian Red Cross and as Norway’s foreign minister from 2005 to 2012. Alexander Stubb, born 1 April 1968, is a former golf international with a background in EU politics who served as Finland’s prime minister and finance minister and won the presidency in February 2024.
