Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban has urged Ukraine to consider seeking a ceasefire with Russia to speed up possible peace negotiations, in the first wartime visit to Kyiv by a leader who has repeatedly opposed European Union and Nato aid to the embattled country.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy hosted Mr Orban on Tuesday, a day after Hungary assumed the rotating six-month presidency of the EU, and amid chilly relations between Kyiv and the bloc’s most Kremlin-friendly leader.
Mr Orban praised a peace summit in Switzerland that Ukraine held last month to generate support for Mr Zelenskiy’s 10-point “peace formula”, but suggested he should push for a halt to fighting — something Kyiv says would simply allow Moscow to rearm and relaunch attacks.
“I told the president that his initiatives will take a lot of time due to the rules of international diplomacy. So I asked [him] to consider whether it would be possible to do something a little differently: to cease fire and then hold talks with Russia, because a ceasefire would speed up the pace of these negotiations,” Mr Orban said.
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“I am very grateful to the president for his frank opinion on this issue,” he added, without revealing Mr Zelenskiy’s response; the Ukrainian leader did not give any immediate public comment on Mr Orban’s suggestion.
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Mr Zelenskiy said the meeting was “clear evidence of our common European priorities and the importance of returning a just peace to Ukraine and the whole of Europe ... We discussed in detail how Hungary can demonstrate its leadership in the preparation of the second peace summit. We see the possibility of organising [it] this year.”
He said they also discussed “trade, cross-border co-operation, infrastructure and energy issues” to clinch “a new bilateral document between our states — a document that will regulate all our mutual relations ... and allow our peoples to enjoy all the benefits of unity in Europe.”
Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, relations between Kyiv and Budapest were badly strained by Mr Orban’s objections to western sanctions on Russia and his criticism of language reforms in Ukraine that he claimed discriminated against its ethnic-Hungarian minority; the law was amended, but Hungary is still not satisfied with it.
Since the full invasion began, Mr Orban has refused to supply arms to Ukraine or let them transit Hungary’s territory, and he has called for talks with Russia because he claims it cannot be beaten on the battlefield.
Hungary describes its position as “pro-peace” and says the West is increasingly “pro-war”, but critics of the populist Mr Orban regard his approach as a self-serving bid to maintain his country’s close economic ties with Russia and undermine consensus in the EU, which has heavily criticised his illiberal and allegedly anti-democratic reforms.
Moscow’s defence ministry said its forces had launched an attack on a Ukrainian airfield with an Iskander ballistic missile, in which “five active Su-27 multipurpose fighters were destroyed and two were damaged”.
The ministry published what appeared to be drone footage of explosions at an airfield, which it claimed was Myrhorod in the Poltava region of eastern Ukraine.
Russia is targeting airfields and other infrastructure in Ukraine that will serve US-made F-16 fighter jets that western states are expected to start delivering to Kyiv in the coming months. At the same time, Ukraine is striking air defence systems in Russia and occupied territory to reduce threats to the F-16s.
Ukrainian air force official Yuriy Ihnat said: “There was a strike. There are certain losses, but not at all like those claimed by the enemy.”
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2024
