Alexander Stubb announced victory in the Finnish presidential election

On Sunday evening, according to preliminary data, after counting almost all the election votes, A. Stubbs won 52 percent. 48 percent of votes against beat former foreign minister, Green Party MP Pekka Haavisto, Financial Times reports.

“This is the greatest honor of my life,” said A. Stubbs, announcing the victory. – We are facing a new era of foreign policy, when the rules are being challenged, and war is happening next door.

Stubbs becomes president at a time when neighboring Russia has stepped up its anti-Finland rhetoric and said it would build up its forces near the border after Helsinki joined NATO last year.

“It is the next president who will leave his mark on NATO policy and how it is carried out between the president and the government. Finland will also have to rebuild its relationship with Russia, which is no different from the task that Finnish presidents had right after World War II,” said Charly Salonius-Pasternak, chief researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

Alexander Stubbs, also a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Finance and Trade of Finland, is an expert on EU and foreign policy, who in recent years headed the School of International Governance at the European University Institute.

He told the Financial Times last month that the Finnish president has a three-fold role: to be the supreme commander of the armed forces, to lead foreign and security policy, including NATO, and to protect Nordic values.

When asked about warnings from other countries that Russia may test NATO in the coming years, A. Stubbs answered in an interview: “The fact that Russia may test NATO in the coming years is very important: Finland is in one of the safest positions in its entire history.”

Finland can call upon one of the largest armed forces of any country in Europe thanks to a large contingent of well-trained reservists, which it has kept ready for a possible Russian attack for decades.