Finland president Niinisto knows Russian counterpart Putin well, and he fears for Ukraine

HELSINKI (NYTIMES) - As the threat of a new Russian invasion of Ukraine grew, the European head of state with the longest and deepest experience dealing with Russian President Vladimir Putin fielded calls and doled out advice.

"'What do you think about this, about this; what about this or this?' That's where I try to be helpful," said Finland President Sauli Niinisto, as the harsh light gleaming off the snow and frozen bay poured into the presidential residence.

"They know that I know Putin," he added. "And because it goes the other way around, Putin sometimes says, 'Well, why don't you tell your Western friends that and that and that?'"

Mr Niinisto, 73, said his role was not merely that of a Nordic runner, shuttling messages between East and West, but of borderland interpreter, explaining to both sides the thinking of the other.

The departure from politics of Dr Angela Merkel, whom for years as Germany's chancellor led Europe's negotiations with Mr Putin, has made Mr Niinisto's role, while smaller, vital, especially as the drumbeat of war grows louder.

But Mr Niinisto is not optimistic. Before and after his last long conversation with Mr Putin last month, he said, he had noticed a change in the Russian.

"His state of mind, the deciding, decisiveness - that is clearly different," Mr Niinisto said. He believed Mr Putin felt he had to seize on "the momentum he has now".

Mr Niinisto said it was hard to imagine that things would return to the way they had been before. The opposing sides disputed the Minsk agreement that the Russians insisted be honoured. The remaining options boiled down to Russia pressuring Europe and extracting demands from the United States for the foreseeable future or, he said, "warfare".

Such plain speaking has made Mr Niinisto, in the fifth year of his second six-year term, wildly popular in Finland. He is compared by some to Mr Urho Kekkonen, who took power in 1956 and ruled Finland for 25 years, during the so-called Finlandisation period of the Cold War.

"We love him," said Mr Juha Eriksson, as he sold reindeer pelts, canned bear meat and smoked salmon sandwiches in a market next to ice shards in the bay. "My generation had Kekkonen, and he was the father of the country. And (Niinisto) is a little something like that. It's a pity that he must leave office soon."

Mr Niinisto plays down his near 90 per cent approval rating as consistent with his predecessors and dismisses the hyperbolic talk of his being some kind of Putin whisperer.

"It's an exaggeration that I somehow know more about Putin or his thinking," he said.

He is clearly cautious about upsetting a relationship he has nurtured over a decade, including many meetings, countless phone calls and a game of ice hockey. Asked who was better, he responded diplomatically: "I've been playing all my life."

But he did point to some concrete benefits. After gaining support from Dr Merkel, he said that he asked in 2020 if Mr Putin would let Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who accuses Russian operatives of poisoning him, to be flown to Germany for medical treatment. Navalny's office later thanked Mr Niinisto.

Finnish officials say that Mr Niinisto sheds his diplomatic modesty in private and is known for his long political memory, cutting style and mission creep.

"I have been sometimes criticised for remembering too much my old history as minister of finance," he said with a smile.

Domestic policy is the territory of the prime minister, currently Ms Sanna Marin, a 36-year-old former cashier and climate change campaigner who raised Mr Niinisto's ire in January, according to Finnish political observers, when she told Reuters that it was "very unlikely" that Finland would apply for membership with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) alliance while she was in office.

"I still say only that I see no major damages," he said, with visible restraint. Asked if her statement was constructive, he said: "I just repeat, no damages."

The Nato option mattered in Finland as a strategic tool to manage Mr Putin.

Despite recalling that Mr Putin once said the friendly Finnish neighbour would become the "enemy soldier" if it joined Nato, Mr Niinisto, who boasts about Finland's impressive artillery, frequently asserts Finland's right to become a member of the alliance.

"I have said it to Putin too, very clearly," he said.