Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre spoke with Vladimir Putin on 27 October and then with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a call tied to upcoming meetings in Abu Dhabi.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre spoke by telephone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday 27 October from Helsinki, and then spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to the Finnish presidency and a Reuters report of the calls.
The Finnish presidency said Stubb and Støre initiated the call to discuss Russia's war against Ukraine and diplomatic efforts to end it, and that the call was a follow-up to a meeting in Oslo on 20 October and was held in consultation with Ukraine. Reuters reported that the call with Putin related to upcoming meetings in Abu Dhabi, and that Zelenskiy had said on Friday that negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States had agreed to technical-level meetings there in early November.
Stubb and Støre said they spoke as leaders of their own countries and not on behalf of Europe as a whole, and that Finland and Norway will continue their longstanding support for Ukraine. Stubb said the discussion was frank and substantive, adding that as neighbouring countries to Russia, the outcome of the war would have a direct impact on their security and on broader European security. Støre said the war carried enormous human and material costs and that the call stressed the importance of de-escalation.
The Finnish presidency's press release, numbered 66/2026 and dated 27 October, is the primary record of the Putin call, and it quotes both leaders directly. Reuters independently reported the follow-up call with Zelenskiy, citing an aide to Zelenskiy, and reported the Abu Dhabi link. Neither the Finnish statement nor the Reuters report announced any agreement, and no Kremlin readout was included in the sources checked for this story, so what was agreed beyond the stated purpose of the call has not been established.
The call matters because direct contact between Western European leaders and Putin has been rare since Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022, Reuters noted. Stubb and Støre met US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Zelenskiy in Oslo last week, a day before Witkoff met Putin in St Petersburg, and the Kremlin said after those talks that Russia was willing to resume US-mediated peace talks in November.
The test of the call will come at the technical-level meetings in Abu Dhabi in early November, which will show whether the messages conveyed from Helsinki lead to a negotiating track or remain a single round of direct contact.