Norwegian prime minister denies Putin lectured him and Finnish president on medieval Slavs during call
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre denied a Financial Times report that said Vladimir Putin recounted the history of the Slavs during a call with him and Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
“We asked the Financial Times to correct this because it isn’t true. And they will correct it, because we took part in the conversation,” Støre said in an interview with the Norwegian newspaper VG.
VG asked the Financial Times for comment. The paper said it would not make any changes. “We stand by our journalism,” an FT representative said.
A day earlier, the Financial Times reported that Putin gave Finland’s president and Norway’s prime minister a lecture on the history of the Slavs in the Middle Ages during an October 27 call. According to the paper, Putin spent much of the conversation on what the Kremlin calls the “initial reasons for the conflict” rather than addressing key questions about ending the war in Ukraine.
Later, Støre offered a different account of the conversation on the NRK program Politisk kvarter, saying Putin spoke about the situation in Europe after 2014.
Putin has made similar lengthy digressions into Russian history in other conversations, including his 2024 interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson and his meeting with Donald Trump in Alaska.
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