Russian invasion of Ukraine

On 2 February 2023, Finland joined a core group set up to support Ukraine in achieving accountability for Russia’s crime of aggression against Ukraine. Altogether 19 states and the European External Action Service have joined the group in addition to Finland and Ukraine.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit Tallinn in Estonia and Riga in Latvia on 25 January.

EU foreign ministers will convene in Brussels on 23 January. Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will represent Finland at the meeting.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto and Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari will attend the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. Minister Haavisto will be in Davos from 17 to 19 January and Minister Skinnari from 17 to 18 January.

Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari and Minister of the Interior Krista Mikkonen are visiting Kyiv, Ukraine, on 9 January. In Kyiv, the ministers are meeting Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration, Minister of Energy, Minister of Internal Affairs and the Mayor of Kyiv.

Finland is supporting the acute needs of Ukraine’s energy sector and green reconstruction through the new Green Recovery Programme with a total of EUR 5 million.

Lebanon has a collapsed economy, no effective government and a high number of Syrian refugees. Despite these challenges, Finland’s Ambassador in Beirut Anne Meskanen sees a desire for change among women, children and young people in the region.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will attend a virtual Nordic foreign ministers’ meeting in N5 format on 13 December. Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly will attend the meeting as a guest.

EU Foreign ministers to meet in Brussels on Monday 12 December. Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto to represent Finland at the meeting.

Finland will grant EUR 4.5 million in additional support to help Ukraine’s energy sector. The support will be used to address acute energy needs in schools, early education centres and hospitals and to develop the country’s energy efficiency in the longer term.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit the United States from 7 to 9 December.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will attend the Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which will be held in Łódź, Poland, on 30 November–1 December. Poland holds the OSCE Chairpersonship in 2022.

Joint statement by the Foreign Ministers of Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and Ukraine on 28 November 2022.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto visited Kyiv, Ukraine, on 28 November together with Nordic and Baltic foreign ministers. In Kyiv, the foreign ministers met the President and the Foreign Minister of Ukraine, among others, and reaffirmed their countries’ firm support to Ukraine.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Haavisto will visit Paris on 23 November. He will meet Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France Catherine Colonna and President of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the French National Assembly Jean-Louis Bourlanges.

EU foreign ministers will convene in Brussels on 14 November. Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will represent Finland at the meeting.

Finland will support the grain shipments of the World Food Programme (WFP) from Ukraine to Somalia. At the same time, Finland will increase its humanitarian assistance to the Horn of Africa, where more than 20 million people are in need of urgent food aid.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will meet Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Tobias Billström in Helsinki on 21 October.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will meet UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly in London on 19 October.

EU foreign ministers will convene in Luxembourg on 17 October. Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will represent Finland at the meeting.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit Brussels on 10 October and speak at a meeting of the EU Heads of Mission. Minister Haavisto will also meet EU High Representative Josep Borrell and Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hadja Lahbib.

On 29 September 2022, the Finnish Government issued a resolution to significantly restrict the entry of Russian tourists into Finland. The entry restrictions will enter into force on 30 September 2022 at 00.00, and they will remain in force until further notice.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will meet Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Péter Szijjártó in Budapest on 15 September.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will attend a meeting of Nordic and Baltic foreign ministers, to be held in the Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB8) cooperation format, in Kaunas in Lithuania on 6–7 September.

In the supplementary budget in July, the Government allocated additional funds to Ukraine amounting to EUR 70 million. Half of these funds has now been granted to improving food security and reproductive health services, ensuring the payment of teachers’ salaries, and to providing accommodation in Ukraine for those who have lost their homes.

The Government proposes EUR 1.3 billion in appropriations for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Support for Ukraine will continue to be at the heart of the Ministry’s budget in 2023.

EU foreign affairs ministers will meet at the Informal Meeting of Foreign Affairs Ministers (Gymnich) in Prague in the Czech Republic on 30–31 August. Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will represent Finland at the meeting. The foreign ministers will discuss the EU’s relations with Africa and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They will meet the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia.

Keynote speech by foreign minister Pekka Haavisto at Europe Forum in Turku on 26th August 2022.

"In times of crisis, decision-making capacity is weighed up. Through good cooperation between various actors, Finland has made the necessary foreign and security policy decisions. In the middle of difficult times, we have made rapid but deliberate progress."

On 21 July 2022, the European Union imposed new sanctions on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine. The new sanctions include a ban on imports of Russian gold. The new sanctions extend and specify previously imposed sanctions and include new provisions on their implementation.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto visited The Hague on Wednesday and will next travel to Montana in the United States. On Monday, he will attend the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will meet Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Zbigniew Rau in Helsinki on 1 July.

The international community supports the sustainability and operational capacity of Ukraine’s public sector in the midst of the war through the World Bank’s FREE Ukraine Multi-Donor Trust Fund. Following Russia’s aggression in February 2022, Finland has granted EUR 21 million in additional funding for development cooperation and humanitarian assistance in Ukraine.

EU foreign ministers will convene in Luxembourg on Monday 20 June. Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will represent Finland at the meeting. The main themes on the agenda of the Foreign Affairs Council will be the Horn of Africa, EU relations with Egypt and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Ministers will also have a discussion on the Persian Gulf.

In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a flagrant violation of the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, based on international law, the other Arctic Council founding states -- Canada, Finland, Iceland, the Kingdom of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the United States -- on March 3 announced a pause in their participation in the Arctic Council. Since March 3, representatives from these States have examined modalities to allow a resumption of the work in the Arctic Council.

The European Union (EU) published a new package of sanctions on 3 June 2022. The new sanctions prohibit the import of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Jan Lipavský will visit Finland on Thursday 2 June and have a meeting with Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will visit Washington DC on 25–27 May. He will meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and speak with representatives of the US administration and Congress. In addition, Minister Haavisto will discuss Finland’s views on transatlantic security at an event held at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which is a non-profit policy research organisation focusing on security policy.

Minister for Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine Oleksiy Chernyshov is visiting Finland on 24–25 May.

The Ambassador of Finland and all Finnish citizens employed by the Finnish mission in Kyiv left Ukraine for security reasons in February, when Russia started its military aggression against Ukraine. The security situation in Kyiv has now improved, and Finland’s Ambassador to Ukraine Päivi Laine has returned to her post in Kyiv.

EU foreign ministers will convene in Brussels on Monday 16 May. State Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Johanna Sumuvuori will represent Finland at the meeting. The Foreign Affairs Council will focus on Russian aggression against Ukraine and on the Western Balkans.

Portugal's minister of foreign affairs João Gomes Cravinho will visit Finland on Friday 13 May and have a meeting with Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto. Follow the live webcast of the press conference at 16.10.

NATO ministers of foreign affairs will hold an informal meeting in Berlin on 14–15 May. Finland and Sweden have been invited to a working dinner held in connection with the meeting on 14 May. Finland’s representative at the meeting will be Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto.

Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Ann Linde will visit Finland on Friday 29 April and have a meeting with Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto.

On Wednesday 13 April, the Government adopted a report on changes in the security environment and submitted it to Parliament for consideration. The report assesses fundamental changes in Finland's foreign and security policy environment following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The report does not include any conclusions or present new security policy guidelines.

The war in Ukraine increases hunger and malnutrition in other parts of the world. Finland allocates EUR 26.1 million to domestic and international organisations for their humanitarian response in countries such as Somalia, Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The EU Member States approved further sanctions on 8 April 2022. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to a large-scale humanitarian emergency and mass migration. The European Union, together with its close partners, responded to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine by imposing new sanctions. The sanctions adopted on Friday 8 April complement the earlier sanctions package imposed by the EU on Russia’s actions.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will attend the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg on Monday 11 April 2022. The main topics on the agenda will be Russian aggression against Ukraine and the new European strategy ‘Global Gateway’.

In such humanitarian crises as the one in Ukraine, many actors are involved. How is work divided, where are relief items purchased, and how can private individuals help? Moreover, are available humanitarian resources sufficient to meet the needs of those affected by crises? Riikka Mikkola, Senior Adviser for Humanitarian Assistance at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, answers these questions.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto will attend the Moldova Support Conference and a meeting of Nordic Foreign Ministers and the French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs in Berlin on 5 April.