The Hungarian leader “arrived in kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodimyr Zelensky” to discuss “the possibility of achieving peace.”
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is on Tuesday making his first visit to Ukraine since the Russian invasion, despite ties between Budapest and Moscow and opposition over aid to kyiv.
Hungarian nationalist leader “arrived in kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodimyr Zelensky”said Bertaland Havasi of Orbán’s press office, quoted by the MTI news agency.
The goal, Havasi stressed, is to discuss “the possibility of achieving peace,” he added.
Hungary currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union (for six months) and Viktor Orbán stands out from other Western leaders over the war in Ukraine.
The Hungarian prime minister has periodically blocked military aid to Ukraine and continues to call for a ceasefire.
Earlier this year, Hungary’s prime minister vetoed a €50 billion financial aid package for Ukraine, which was approved after strong criticism from kyiv.
The Eurosceptic Hungarian leader, who has been in power continuously since 2010, also opposed any discussion of Ukraine’s accession to the European Union (EU), saying the country was “not ready.”
At the EU leaders’ summit in December 2023, it finally agreed to drop the issue, while its 26 counterparts decided to start accession negotiations with kyiv.
On Monday, the President of Ukraine congratulated Hungary on the start of the EU presidency and said he hoped that The country promotes “common European values, goals and interests.”
Viktor Orbán remains close to Russia and President Vladimir Putin, with whom the West has cut ties since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022.
Russia remains an important source of Hungary’s energy needs.
The Hungarian leader also disapproves of the European sanctions against Russia and is trying to soften them, although without blocking them completely.
Viktor Orbán has repeatedly described the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as a “military operation”, using the expression imposed by the Russian presidency after meeting Vladimir Putin in Beijing in October 2023 to discuss issues related to energy cooperation.
Source: Observadora
