EU-Russia ties can’t be fully repaired – Finland

Relations can be fixed only to a limited extent once there is a “lasting” peace in Ukraine, President Alexander Stubb has said

EU countries may eventually restore ties with Russia “in one form or another” once the Ukraine conflict is settled, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said on Monday. Any future cooperation, however, would look fundamentally different from the arrangements that existed before hostilities began, he claimed.

Stubb has previously said Finland will seek pragmatic, interest-based relations with Russia once the Ukraine conflict is over.

”Establishing relations between Russia and the rest of Europe in one form or another will only be possible once a just and lasting peace has been achieved in Ukraine,” Stubb said at the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference on the Aland Islands, an autonomous region of Finland.

During the Cold War, Helsinki pursued a policy of neutrality and maintained stable relations with the Soviet Union. This continued for decades after the collapse of the USSR, although relations have deteriorated since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

Stubb noted that relations with Moscow remain “frozen,” while Baltic Sea nations have stepped up cooperation, and pointed to Finland and Sweden’s recent accession to NATO. “We cannot turn back the tide of history,” he said.

Read more

The Finnish leader has repeatedly spoken about the prospect of rebuilding ties after the conflict. In April 2025, he told a news conference in London that Helsinki must “morally prepare” for renewed relations with Moscow and said EU leaders had begun discussing possible contacts with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded at the time that Russia has never been the first to damage relations with other countries and continues to seek good ties with its neighbors. Finland’s decision to join NATO has effectively “reduced relations to zero,” he said. The same applies to Sweden, he added, which joined NATO last year.

Since 2022, Finland has imposed several rounds of sanctions on Moscow in line with EU policy. The country has tightened entry rules for Russian citizens and later closed border checkpoints, citing an influx of asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa. All southeastern border crossings remain shut, except for the Vainikkala rail station used for freight traffic. The closure has also hurt Finnish businesses, particularly in trade, retail and tourism, which once relied heavily on cross-border flows.