​Pragmatic or pointless? Europe’s rift over whether to pick up the phone to Putin

With no single European representative negotiating directly with Moscow, some leaders are establishing their own channels – with messy results

The Nordic countries rarely fall out in public over foreign policy, least of all over Russia.

But a 90-minute phone call this week to Vladimir Putin by the leaders of Finland and Norway drew an unusual rebuke from their Danish and Swedish neighbours.

On Tuesday, Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, and Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, spoke with Putin, in a rare high-level conversation between the Russian leader and Ukraine’s European allies. The two Nordic leaders stressed that the call had been conducted on Ukraine’s behalf and that allies had been informed in advance.