BRUSSELS — Donald Trump should allow Ukraine to use America’s long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said.
In an interview with POLITICO, Orpo warned that Russia represents a “permanent threat” to European security and urged the U.S. president to grant Ukraine the weapons it needs to defend itself and bring Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.
Orpo’s comments came as Trump announced sweeping sanctions on Russian state-owned oil firms, in the most significant step he has taken as president to put pressure on Putin over the Ukraine war.
“Putin believes only in power,” Orpo said as he arrived in Brussels for a summit of European Union leaders at a pivotal moment in Ukraine’s more than three-year war against Russian invaders. “If we want to stop the war we have to be on the same level or even stronger” than Russia, Orpo said.
After failing to persuade Putin to meet Trump for ceasefire talks in Hungary, the U.S. seems to be running out of patience with the Kremlin. On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury announced sanctions against Moscow’s biggest oil firms, Rosneft and Lukoil, citing Russia’s “lack of serious commitment to a peace process.”
“Today is a very big day in terms of what we are doing. These are tremendous sanctions,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “We hope that they won’t be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled.”
Trump displayed frustration with Putin’s foot-dragging in negotiations to end the invasion. “Every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations, and then they don’t go anywhere. They just don’t go anywhere,” he said.
But Trump added that he did not want to let Ukraine use American Tomahawks. It takes “a year of intense training” to learn how to fire the “highly complex” missiles, Trump said, and that’s too long to wait.
Finland is one of the EU’s most influential countries with Trump after its president, Alexander Stubb, bonded with the American leader on the golf course. The Finns are among the most hawkish in Europe on security as they share a 1,300 kilometer border with Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy argues Putin only showed an interest in peace with Trump when he suggested he would let Ukraine use Tomahawks — and as soon as Trump took the cruise missiles off the table, Russia backtracked on peace.
So should Trump give Zelenskyy the missiles he wants? “I really hope that they can get the capabilities that they need to [counter]strike Russia and defend themselves,” Orpo said. “We know that this is a question between Zelenskyy and the United States and I really hope they can find a solution.”
On Thursday, EU leaders in Brussels aim to make progress on a plan to raid Russia’s frozen financial assets for a “reparations loan” to Ukraine. One question is what sort of conditions the EU should attach to the loan, which could be worth as much as €140 billion, enough to keep Ukraine in the fight for two or three years.
France is reportedly leading the push to make Ukraine spend the money on weapons manufactured in Europe. Some other countries, including Sweden, are said to want Ukraine to be able to choose how to use the loan.
Orpo argues Europe must have a say. “I don’t think that whole freedom is the best way,” he said. “We give loans and so we need to do it in good cooperation with them … we need to know that they will use this huge amount of money in a responsible way.”
That means, where possible, buying European. “I hope that they can buy more and more weapons from Europe,” Orpo said. “But we know that we don’t have all those capabilities and weapons in Europe that they need. So it’s reality that they also must be allowed to buy from the U.S., if needed.”
He added: “This is not only a question of Tomahawks. If we can find a solution on how we can finance Ukraine strongly and find a long-term solution using frozen assets it will be so strong a message to Putin that he understands that he cannot win this war. This can be a game changer.”
The post Now let Zelenskyy hit Russia with Tomahawks, Finland tells Trump appeared first on Politico.
