As the threat of a new Russian invasion of Ukraine grew, the European head of state with the longest and deepest experience dealing with Vladimir V. Putin fielded calls and doled out advice to President Emmanuel Macron of France and other world leaders desperate for insight into his difficult neighbour to the east.
“‘What do you think about this, about this, what about this, or this?’ That’s where I try to be helpful,” said Sauli Niinisto, the President of Finland. “They know that I know Putin,” he added. “And because it goes the other way around, Putin sometimes says, ‘Well, why don’t you tell your western friends that and that and that?’”
Niinisto, 73, said his role was not merely that of a Nordic runner, shuttling messages between East and West, but of borderland interpreter, explaining to both sides the thinking of the other. The departure from politics of Angela Merkel, who for years as Germany’s chancellor led Europe’s negotiations with Putin, has made Niinisto’s role, while smaller, vital.
But Niinisto is not optimistic. Before and after his last long conversation with Putin last month, he said, he had noticed a change in the Russian. “His state of mind, the deciding, decisiveness — that is clearly different,” Niinisto said. He believed Putin felt he had to seize on “the momentum he has now”.
He said it was hard to imagine that things would return to the way they had been before. The opposing sides disputed the Minsk agreement that the Russians insisted be honoured. The remaining options boiled down to Russia pressuring Europe and extracting demands from the US for the foreseeable future, or, he said, “warfare”.
Such plain speaking has made Niinisto, in the fifth year of his second six-year term, wildly popular in Finland.
Niinisto plays down his near 90 per cent approval rating and dismisses the talk of his being some kind of Putin whisperer. “It’s an exaggeration that I somehow know more about Putin or his thinking,” he said. He is clearly cautious about upsetting a relationship he has nurtured over a decade, including many meetings, countless phone calls and a game of ice hockey. Asked who was better, he responded diplomatically: “I’ve been playing all my life.”
But he did point to some concrete benefits. After gaining support from Merkel, he said that he asked in 2020 if Putin would let Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian Opposition leader who accuses Russian operatives of poisoning him, to be flown to Germany for medical treatment. Navalny’s office later thanked Niinisto.
In a memorable joint news conference at the White House in 2019, Niinisto looked squarely at President Donald J. Trump and said: “You have a great democracy. Keep it going on.”
“He doesn’t respect institutions,” Niinisto said of Trump in the interview
But in dealing with Putin, Niinisto tried to give Trump some pointers before a summit in 2018 in Helsinki. Before a solicitous public performance that was widely considered a disaster for Trump, Niinisto told Trump that Putin “respects the one who is fighting back”.
Niinisto has said he told Biden something similar ahead of Biden’s call with Putin over Ukraine last month.
New York Times News Service