THOUSANDS of people protested in Helsinki yesterday before the summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin today.

Demonstrators at the “Helsinki calling” event demanded “human rights for all” and said the protest was aimed at both the US president and his Russian counterpart, urging them to improve their records on human and sexual rights, democracy and the environment.

Angry Birds co-creator Peter Vesterbacka said the event highlighted that “in Finland, we treat children as people. We don’t put them in cages,” referring to Mr Trump’s incarceration of infants along the Mexican border. 

Finnish author Sofi Oksanen read texts by Ukrainian film-maker Oleg Sentsov, who is currently on hunger strike in a Russian prison having been convicted of planning terror attacks on infrastructure following the Crimean peninsula’s reunification with Russia. Supporters say he was tortured into confessing to the charges.

Mr Trump says he has “low expectations” of his meeting with Mr Putin, but it has still panicked allies such as Germany, which begged him not to conclude any unilateral deals with Moscow over the weekend.