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Volodymyr Zelensky to remotely attend Helsinki's OSCE meeting

The Helsinki+50 Conference is being held next Thursday.

A man with dark hair and beard, wearing a black shirt and pants, standing at a podium and pointing with his left finger. The background is blue.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses a press conference during the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2025 (URC2025) at the Roma Convention Centre in Rome on July 10, 2025. Image: Andreas Solaro / AFP
  • Yle News

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will participate in next week's Helsinki+50 Conference, attending the meeting remotely, according to Finland's Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Hosted by Foreign Affairs Minister Elina Valtonen (NCP), the conference will be held in Finland's capital on 31 July.

On Thursday it was reported the meeting's attendees would also include representatives from Russia and Belarus.

There were earlier reports the Ukrainian president would attend the conference as a keynote speaker, but it was unclear whether he would arrive in person.

According to the ministry, the conference aims to strengthen member countries' commitments to the principles of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a security-oriented group of 57 countries which Finland currently chairs.

The conference will also note the 50th anniversary of the historic 1975 Helsinki CSCE meeting, where leaders from the US and the Soviet Union sat down in Helsinki to address their differences, helping to ease tensions between the two superpowers at the height of the Cold War.