Joe Biden ended his five-day tour of three European countries this Thursday with a powerful message, which he announced in Helsinki. The US President took part in a summit meeting with the heads of state and government of the northern countries of the continent, at which the war in Ukraine was the focus of discussion. In the Finnish capital, Biden reiterated his support for the Ukrainian government, which he had shown the previous two days during the NATO summit in Lithuania, and alerted his Russian counterpart to the risk of failure in Ukraine. “[Vladímir] “Putin has already lost the war in Ukraine,” he declared on the sidelines of a symbolic visit to Finland, the last NATO member, last April. Biden’s remarks this Thursday in Helsinki stand in stark contrast to those made by his predecessor Donald Trump in the Finnish city just five years ago, when he held a bilateral meeting with Putin, where a conciliatory tone prevailed.
Biden has met with the leaders of the five Nordic countries in the Hall of Mirrors at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki. The US President has emphasized “the values of liberty and equality” that bind the United States and the countries of this region. He stressed the “historical character” of the alliance summit, which took place in Vilnius on Tuesday and Wednesday and in which Finland took part for the first time as a full member. Biden also welcomed the fact that Sweden’s entry into the Euro-Atlantic organization will be formalized in principle in the short term after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised in the Lithuanian capital to lift the brakes on the Scandinavian country’s entrance. “Soon we will be 32 allies,” he said during a press conference with his Finnish counterpart, Sauli Niinistö.
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In a speech alongside Niinistö, Biden questioned Russia’s economic and military ability to “fight for years in Ukraine” and expressed his hope that Putin would soon realize that “continuing the war is neither economically nor politically nor … is otherwise in the interest of Russia”. ” “Putin has already lost the war in Ukraine,” the democratic politician judged, then added his wish that the Ukrainian army could make great strides with the counteroffensive launched in June in the south and east of the country. The US President has in the Finnish capital reiterated that at this week’s summit in Vilnius, the Atlantic Alliance “officially raised the level of its relations with Ukraine” and offered a route to membership, while “democratic reforms and security aspects are necessary for joining” NATO “, although future accession was made conditional on the end of the war on Ukrainian territory.
The President of the United States met with Nordic leaders 180 kilometers from Finland’s border with Russia, the longest on the continent after Ukraine and the Eurasian giant. a boundary changed during World War II following the annexation of several Finnish territories prior to the Soviet Union’s advance. Moscow’s renewed imperialist push in Ukraine over the past year prompted Finland and Sweden to announce their intention to renounce decades of military neutrality that Moscow had largely enforced at the start of the Cold War.
“I don’t think NATO has ever been stronger”
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Biden, who has also held a bilateral meeting with Niinistö, hailed Finland as an “incredible asset” to the Atlantic Alliance. “I don’t think NATO has ever been stronger. “Together we defend common democratic values,” the US President told reporters. For his part, Niinistö assured that Finland’s accession opened “a new era” for the security of the country and northern Europe, and praised Biden for “building unity” at the Vilnius summit.
From left to right: Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson; the Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen; the President of the United States, Joe Biden; Finnish President Sauli Niinistö; Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir; and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, this Thursday in Helsinki.KIMMO BRANDT (EFE)
Sweden’s future accession to NATO – which still needs to be approved by the parliaments of Turkey and Hungary – as well as Finland’s recent accession have created a new security framework in the region. Ulf Kristersson, the Prime Minister of Sweden, has thanked Biden for his efforts to overturn Ankara’s veto and joked about the constant contact he’s had with him over the past few weeks: “The truth is I see you more than my own family. “And I love it,” the conservative politician told him after their recent meetings in Washington and Vilnius. The US President has expressed his appreciation for the leaders of Denmark, Norway and Iceland, the founding partners of the alliance, for supporting Ukraine. At the summit between the US and the Nordic countries, the first held in Washington since Barack Obama in 2016, other issues were also addressed, such as Chinese influence in Europe, the fight against climate change and artificial intelligence.
During Question Time, a Wall Street Journal reporter asked Biden if his administration was considering the possibility of conducting a prisoner swap to free the New Yorker newspaper’s Moscow correspondent Evan Gershkovich from prison in the Russian capital Days. “I take it seriously,” the President replied. “As I am serious about doing whatever we can to free Americans who are being held illegally in Russia or elsewhere. That process is ongoing,” he added.
Biden’s stay in Helsinki, the final leg of a tour that began in London, also served to create a new contrast between his foreign policy and Trump’s and to celebrate the fifth anniversary of his visit to the Nordic country. Times were definitely different in July 2018. Trump met with Putin in the Finnish capital for two hours behind closed doors and accompanied by his only translators. The memory of the four participants remained the only recording of this conversation, from which no notes were made. Both leaders later gave a joint press conference in which Trump defined Putin as a “good competitor” and considered it “absurd” that the US was allowing its relations with Russia to weaken. That was also the day the Republican tycoon contradicted his intelligence community when asked if he believed his allegations of Moscow meddling in the 2016 presidential election that won him the White House were true. “I have great self-confidence [en ellos]but I can tell you that today President Putin very firmly and convincingly denied it,” he replied.
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