Nothing wrong with “having learning difficulties”, (ultimately just another category created by those who love to categorise others), but, even so, perhaps a President should be able to reason at least at IQ 100 level?
I’m quoting from the Guardian:
“Security guarantees in essence are a deterrent. That deterrent has to be plausible and in order for it to be plausible it has to be strong,” [President of Finland] Stubb told the Guardian, in an interview in Helsinki before travelling to New York for the UN general assembly.
He said the guarantees would only come into effect after a future deal between Ukraine and Russia, but insisted that Russia would have no veto over their format.
“Russia has absolutely no say in the sovereign decisions of an independent nation state … So for me it’s not an issue will Russia agree or not. Of course they won’t, but that’s not the point,” he said. [1]
Assuming the Guardian has reported this correctly. we can say that Stubb has not managed to put one thought after another. On the one hand, he is speaking the truth. These phantasy land “security guarantees” which the Coalition of the Delusional (borrowing a term from a former US Ambassador Chas Freeman), propose would, of course, mean that troops stationed in Ukraine would have to be ready to, (and, I think not just ready to), fight Russia. But. Stop. Think. Is Russia going to agree to a deal to end the Ukraine war which contains in it the seed to start a Europe-Russia war – almost the very thing which they launched their operation on Ukraine to prevent? It seems a crazy idea. And, if that needed to be confirmed, the Russian Foreign Minister, Lavrov, has explicitly said as much:
In a series of hardline remarks, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said European proposals to deploy troops in Ukraine after a settlement would amount to “foreign intervention”, which he called absolutely unacceptable for Russia.
[2]
Alexander Stubb can go on all he likes about Ukraine and “sovereign decision”; but Russia is not going to sign a peace deal which has an effective appendix which nullifies one of the main reasons they launched their operation; the demilitarisation of Ukraine and to reverse its NATO pathway.
There is a nuance here. The Coalition of the Delusional is not one and the same with NATO. I think I even heard NATO pointing this out. But, in reality, if Russia is striking British and French troops in Ukraine and they are dying, and maybe French planes are being shot out of the sky, is NATO not going to be dragged into it?
Do these people not grasp that all this talk about “security guarantees” “after a deal”, which Russia “has no veto over” because it is Ukraine’s “sovereign decision”, absolutely blocks any deal? Is that why they are doing it? Amazingly; I doubt they even have that much intelligence. I think they have just latched onto what amounts to a face-saving plan, which tacitly accepts some lost territory but compensates for it psychologically by beefing themselves up to the max, (retreat and pump out your chest), and are simply unable to grasp the actual implications of this for any negotiated settlement or even ‘ceasefire’. The implications are that it kicks any “deal” into touch.
Notes
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/20/security-guarantees-for-ukraine-require-readiness-to-fight-russia-says-finlands-president
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/21/russia-ukraine-trump-peace-foreign-intervention-veto-demand
[Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_Stubb_2024_(2).jpg]
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