U.S. President Joe Biden dropped into a meeting at the last minute in the White House to see a man all of Washington wants an audience with: Sauli Niinisto, once upon a time known as the “Putin whisperer.”
The impromptu get-together was thrown together as Biden joined Niinisto and U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. The pair of presidents have now met three times and spoken four since late 2021 — giving the Finnish head of state unprecedented access to the world’s most powerful leader.
At stake is the stalled expansion of NATO, with Turkey and Hungary holding up the biggest shift in the security landscape of western Europe in several decades.
