Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who met with his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump over the weekend, returned to Europe with two main messages. First, a proposed deadline of April 20 for an unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine. Second, that Trump is growing tired of Russia's delays and is considering imposing tougher sanctions.

"This is more of a publicly voiced threat or pressure tactic. It's not a real policy that's going to be implemented immediately. What we see from the meeting with Finland's president is that President Trump seems to have realized the need to set some kind of deadline — otherwise, Russia won't engage in any real negotiations and will just keep stalling and making new demands," said security expert Rainer Saks.

According to Saks, Stubb was able to meet with Trump because he made the right offer. The Finnish president studied in the United States and is an excellent golfer. At the same time, Saks noted that truly influencing Trump and achieving concrete results would require a united effort from all of Europe. So far, no meetings have taken place between the U.S. president and EU leaders.

"The problem starts with Europe itself. Europe hasn't agreed on how, in what way and to what extent anyone should represent it on this issue. What we're seeing is that Europe has split into coalitions of the willing. And it's impossible to say whether France or the United Kingdom is leading a single coalition. They claim to lead jointly. That's Europe's weakness," said Saks.

"What's really positive about Stubb's visit is that, today, we can be confident that if someone from the Nordic-Baltic region gets a direct line to Trump, the content of their message reflects the interests of the entire region. The level of communication between the Nordic and Baltic countries is so high right now that these messages are certainly coordinated," said Kristi Raik, head of the International Center for Defense and Security (ICDS).

Estonia was not informed in advance about the Stubb-Trump meeting. According to Ministry of Foreign Affairs Secretary General Jonatan Vseviov, this shouldn't be taken as a slight, since it's likely that even the Finnish president himself wasn't certain the meeting would happen until the last minute. Vseviov also said that Estonia's limited contact with the Trump administration doesn't mean such meetings are impossible.

"I don't believe that gaining access to the Trump administration is inherently more difficult than with other American administrations. That seven-hour golf course meeting with Stubb proves the point. If anything, it might even be the opposite. But whenever we consider such meetings, we weigh both what we hope to gain and what we might risk," Vseviov said.

He added that, so far, Estonia hasn't missed out on any meetings it has sought.

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