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 US president Donald Trump.
Mr Stubb was speaking after holding two conversations in the previous 24 hours with Mr Zelenskiy and one with Mr Trump.
“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,” Mr Stubb told a press conference 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.”
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Mr Stubb and Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre initiated the phone call with Mr Trump late on Thursday, after speaking with Mr Zelenskiy.
They had again spoken to Mr Zelenskiy on Friday, alongside leaders of other Nordic nations, Britain, the Baltics and the Dutch defence minister.
Mr Støre appeared somewhat more cautious on progress.
“Compared to some weeks ago, I think there are some positive elements,” he said.
Russia had unilaterally declared a three-day ceasefire running until Saturday to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Germany in the second World War. It marked the occasion with a large military parade on Friday. Russian president Vladimir Putin stood beside China’s Xi Jinping and several dozen other leaders as Russian troops marched past.
[ ‘Friends of steel’: Xi and Putin pledge to stand together against USOpens in new window ]
Mr 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 US 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.
Ukraine will host a meeting of leaders of the so-called “coalition of the willing” on Saturday, Mr Zelenskiy said.
Established earlier this year and led by France and Britain, the coalition reflects concern among Europeans that the US no longer represents a bulwark of support for Ukraine.
Mr Zelenskiy did not specify which of the leaders was going to come to Kyiv for the coalition meeting, but earlier this week Germany’s new chancellor Friedrich Merz said he intended to visit Ukraine in the near future.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that France would take part in a meeting in Ukraine on Saturday. He said the meeting would be partly by video and partly via physical presence of participants.
[ Ukraine: Two spies detained over alleged Hungarian plotOpens in new window ]
Earlier on Friday, Ukraine’s SBU security agency said it had uncovered a spy network run by the Hungarian state to obtain intelligence about its defences, with Hungary responding to what it called “propaganda” by expelling two people at the Ukrainian embassy in Budapest.
The SBU said in a statement it had detained two suspected agents who, it claimed, were being run by Hungarian military intelligence.
Hungary is part of the European Union and Nato, two blocs with which Kyiv is closely allied in Russia’s war in Ukraine, but relations between Kyiv and Budapest have often been fraught.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban has been sceptical about western military aid for Ukraine. He has also maintained relations with Mr Putin.
The SBU said the two suspects were recruited by a handler in Hungarian military intelligence, and given cash and special equipment for secret communication.
The SBU said the alleged agents were tasked with passing on to their handler details about Ukraine’s air defence batteries, and other military capabilities in the Transcarpathia region of southern Ukraine.
Ukraine is home to about 150,000 ethnic Hungarians, most of them in the Transcarpathia region. Mr Orban’s government and Kyiv have clashed over the community’s language rights.
Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said he regarded the move as Ukrainian propaganda before announcing that Budapest had expelled from Hungary two people it had identified as spies.
