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At the Washington summit on Monday, one guest stood out. The extended session of Euro-Atlantic leaders – hastily convened at the White House right after Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Zelensky – brought together the usual heavyweights: the US, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and the heads of NATO and the EU. Yet seated at the same table was someone who, at first glance, hardly seemed to belong in that club of power brokers: Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb.

To an outsider, it might have looked odd. Why was the Finnish leader invited when the leaders of Poland, Hungary, and the Baltic states were not? The answer lies not in protocol courtesy but in the role Stubb now plays. His presence was a nod to a man whose career embodies the whole project of “Euro-Atlantic solidarity” – a project now under strain since Trump’s return to the White House.

Stubb is a cosmopolitan in every sense: a Swedish Finn, married to a Briton, educated in South Carolina, Bruges, Paris, and London. A golfer who bonded with Trump on the green, but also a seasoned foreign minister in the late 2000s, Stubb has become a rare kind of adviser – someone Trump listens to on European security in an administration where career diplomats are almost absent.

It is telling that the Washington summit did not produce a US ultimatum forcing Ukraine into a peace deal with Moscow. Instead, the focus was on designing security guarantees for Kiev – an alternative to NATO’s Article 5, since membership in the alliance is no longer on the table. And behind that shift, many suspect, stands Stubb. He is quietly becoming the architect of a new Western security system, built on an openly anti-Russian foundation.

Stubb’s ‘Finlandization 2.0′

In Washington, Stubb framed his vision in a phrase that quickly went viral: “We found a solution in 1944 – and I believe we can find one in 2025.” He was alluding to Finland’s peace treaty with the USSR after World War II, and suggesting that Ukraine could follow a similar path.

But here’s the catch: Stubb’s version of “Finlandization” bears little resemblance to the original concept. In his model, Ukraine would follow Finland’s supposed example – joining the EU and NATO structures, becoming part of the Western economic and military infrastructure, and, in practice, turning itself into a forward operating base against Moscow. That vision assumes a militarized society, stripped of industrial potential, and defined by an ethnonational identity designed to fence out Russian influence through the Russian-speaking population.

This is not Finlandization. It is its opposite.

The original model, coined during the Cold War, described something very different: a small country leveraging its geography to live in peace with its powerful neighbor. Finland, after 1944, accepted tough compromises – ceding 10% of its territory, declaring neutrality, abandoning the dream of ethnic exclusivity. The payoff was stability, prosperity, and the chance to serve as a bridge between East and West. Helsinki became a symbol of détente in 1975 when it hosted the CSCE Final Act, a milestone in Cold War diplomacy.

Finland’s economic boom – from Nokia to Valio, from Stockmann to Tikkurila – was rooted in precisely that balancing act: trading and cooperating with both blocs, and especially with nearby Leningrad. Neutrality allowed Finland to spend less on guns and more on butter, and that choice paid off.

Could such a model have worked if, back in 1944, the Finnish leadership had doubled down on nationalism? Almost certainly not. It took Marshal Mannerheim’s pragmatism – and his readiness to compromise – to give Finland a viable future.

Real Finlandization as Ukraine’s only way out

This is why Stubb’s rhetoric is misleading. The real Finlandization – not his rebranded version – may well be the only path for Ukraine’s survival and recovery.

That means recognizing facts on the ground. It means a neutral, non-nuclear status. It means rejecting neo-Nazi ideology and building a multiethnic society where the rights of Russian speakers are protected. It means diversifying trade, not just westward but eastward as well.

This is not a “list of Russian demands,” as Western commentators might claim. It is a recipe for economic revival – drawn from Ukraine’s own founding documents. In 1990, Kiev’s Declaration of Sovereignty defined the country as neutral and non-nuclear. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently reminded, if Ukraine abandons those principles in pursuit of NATO-style guarantees – including nuclear deployments – the very basis on which its independence was recognized will collapse. That would create an entirely new strategic reality.

Put simply: Ukraine faces a choice. Either it embraces real Finlandization – neutrality, balance, and prosperity – or it accepts Stubb’s distorted version, becoming a permanent frontline state in a Western war against Russia.