Ukraine to decide when to negotiate with Russia and under what terms – PM of Finland

KYIV. Jan 18 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Prime Minister of Finland Sanna Marin said Ukraine will decide when to negotiate with Russia and on what conditions, but it is necessary to make sure that the war ends with Ukraine’s victory.

"We don’t know yet when the war will end. But we have to make sure that it will end with Ukraine’s win. I don’t think that there is any other choice. If Russia would win the war, then we would only see decades of this kind of behavior ahead of us," Marin said during an interview on the Economic Forum in Davos.

She stressed that if the Russian Federation wins the war, it will be a message that "you can invade another country, attack, seize territories."

"We have to send a message that is opposite that the Russia will lose, Ukraine will push Russia back, and Ukraine will be whole again. We together to have to make sure that this will become reality," Marin added.

She said Ukraine must independently decide whether there will be negotiations with Russia.

"We only need to support. Today they need more support with arms. They need more defence material and we have to give that to Ukrainians. They need humanitarian and financial assistance… It is up to them to decide what kind of negotiations they will undergo, what are the terms they are ready to accept. Our job is to support them," the prime minister said.

She also expressed confidence that if Ukraine were a member of NATO, then there would be no war. According to her, in 2014, when Russia attacked Crimea, " should have we acted differently, if we would be more strong, impose much harder sanctions, and then the story would have been different."

In addition, Marin said it is necessary to become independent from the authoritarian regime of Russia, in particular in the energy sector.