HELSINKI (Reuters) -Finland's President Alexander Stubb said on Tuesday that progress is being made on security guarantees for Ukraine but added that a peace agreement would need to be in place before any such measures could be implemented.
"We need to coordinate the security arrangements with the United States, which essentially will provide the backstop for this ... We're focusing on these issues with our chiefs of defence, which are drawing the concrete plants of what this type ofoperation might look like," Stubb told reporters.
"We're making progress on this and hopefully we'll get a solution soon," he added, while cautioning that he was not optimistic about a peace agreement or a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia in the near future.
Stubb was one of several European leaders travelling to Washington in August for a joint meeting with Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to discuss the prospect for peace between Russia and Ukraine.
(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen, editing by Terje Solsvik)
