BERLIN, August 7. /TASS/. Former Finnish President Sauli Niinisto believes that Europe should engage in dialogue with Russia to discuss the security architecture on the continent, as well as the issue of how to avoid hybrid conflicts, he told German weekly Der Spiegel in an interview.

"Two big things here. The first is the so-called security architecture in Europe," Niinisto said, reminding that "the Russians have wanted to discuss this for a long time" and that the topic was raised during the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump in Alaska.

"If a discussion about the European security architecture takes place, Europeans should in any case sit at the negotiating table," he said.

The second topic that, in his opinion, Europe and Russia should discuss is related to the period after the conflict in Ukraine ends.

"A hostile border will run through Europe – to some extent, just as it did after World War II," Niinisto believes.

He said that during the Cold War, the presence of nuclear weapons forced the USSR and the US to begin negotiations to keep the situation under control. "Today, our first priority should be to achieve a comparable balance of terror – that is, to ensure that we are also capable of inflicting significant damage in a hybrid war. And then, as a next step, we need – together with the United States and others – to hold negotiations with Russia on how, in times of strife, we can avoid hybrid conflicts," Niinisto said.