By Gwladys Fouche
OSLO (Reuters) – Efforts towards securing an agreed ceasefire in Ukraine are moving in the right direction, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said on Friday, shortly after speaking with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Finland’s Stubb was speaking after holding two conversations in the last 24 hours with Zelenskiy and one with Trump, as fighting continued on the ground.
“I feel carefully optimistic that at this particular moment in time, we’re moving in the right direction, both militarily on the ground, as Zelenskiy has pointed out, and also in terms of the ceasefire and the peace process,” Stubb told a press conference with his Norwegian counterpart and after a meeting of Northern European nations’ leaders in Oslo.
“We can’t give a timetable now, but in an ideal world a Ukraine ceasefire would be declared over the weekend.”
Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere initiated the phone call with Trump late on Thursday, after speaking with Ukraine’s Zelenskiy earlier in the day.
They had again spoken to Zelenskiy on Friday, alongside leaders of other Nordic nations, Britain, the Baltics and the Dutch defence minister.
Norway’s Stoere appeared somewhat more cautious on progress.
“It depends, as always, with what do we compare,” Stoere told Reuters.
“So compared to some weeks ago, I think there are some positive elements. I think the fact that the U.S. are still engaged, that they reconfirmed their engagement – if you read the wording of President Trump yesterday evening, I think we contributed to that.”
Russia has unilaterally declared a three-day ceasefire running from May 8-10 to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two.
Trump on Thursday called for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, warning that Washington and its partners would impose further sanctions if the ceasefire was not respected.
Ukraine has expressed readiness to accept the U.S. proposal.
On the ground, both sides reported fighting.
Ukrainian troops have made further attempts to breach the Russian border in the Kursk and Belgorod regions, according to the Russian Defence Ministry, while Ukraine’s military said there had been 80 attacks by Russian troops along the front line on Friday.
(This story has been corrected to clarify the participants in Friday’s call, in paragraph 6)
(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik and Alex Richardson)
