Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre denied a Financial Times report that Vladimir Putin devoted almost the entire phone call with him and Finnish President Alexander Stubb to a lecture on medieval Slavic history. Norway and Finland asked for a correction, but the newspaper refused to make changes.
This was reported on October 28 by Norwegian TV 2 and VG. The call between the three leaders took place on October 27.
"That is not true. And we have asked Financial Times to correct it, because it does not correspond to reality,"- Støre told TV 2.
According to him, Putin asked to present his own view of the current situation and talked about events from 2014 to the present. Støre stressed that the report about an excursion into medieval Slavic history is incorrect.
The Norwegian PM also denied that Putin unilaterally dominated the conversation. According to his estimate, it lasted about an hour and a half, part of the time was spent on translation, and the opportunity to speak was distributed roughly equally between the parties. Støre explained that he and Stubb conveyed their positions and asked for responses to them.
State Secretary at the Prime Minister's Office Bhanuja Rasia clarified to VG that Finland contacted Financial Times on behalf of both countries with a request for correction. A representative of the newspaper in response stated that the publication stands by its story. FT did not provide additional explanation of the grounds for the information it contained.
Støre explains the need for such contacts by the fact that Norway and Finland are neighbors of Russia, and Europe needs a direct channel of communication with Moscow. In his opinion, the dialogue about the war in Ukraine should not be left only to the United States.
As previously reported by "Kurs Ukrainy", Financial Times, citing three informed interlocutors, wrote that Putin spoke almost the entire time about so-called "historical root causes of the conflict". According to the newspaper's sources, the prospect of an immediate ceasefire was hardly discussed during the call.
