Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, whose country, close to Russia, has just taken over the EU presidency, called on Ukraine in kyiv on Tuesday for a “ceasefire”, contrary to the positions of the Ukrainians and their European allies.
“I asked the president to quickly consider the possibility of a ceasefire,” which would be “limited in time and would allow to accelerate the peace negotiations,” said Mr. Orban, the only one in the EU to have remained close to the Kremlin since the start of the war with kyiv in February 2022.
The Ukrainian president’s “initiatives” “take a long time, are slow and complicated due to the rules of international diplomacy,” argued the Hungarian official, whose country has just taken over the rotating presidency of the European Union on 1er July for 6 months.
He thanked Mr Zelensky for the “frankness” of the conversation and promised to “report” the content of these discussions to the Council of the European Union “so that the necessary European decisions can be taken”.
Standing next to his guest, the Ukrainian president did not react to his proposal. In the past, he had already firmly rejected the idea of a truce with Russia, believing that Moscow would only use it to strengthen its army.
Ukraine sees the withdrawal of Russian forces from its territory as a prerequisite for peace, while Moscow demands that it give up five regions and abandon its ambitions to join NATO.
Maintain European aid
For his part, Volodymyr Zelensky reaffirmed that Mr. Orban’s visit illustrated “common European priorities, how important it is to bring a just peace to Ukraine and to the whole of Europe.”
President Zelensky also called for maintaining “a sufficient level” of military aid paid by Europe to kyiv.
The Hungarian Prime Minister also stands out for his opposition to this assistance, which is extremely valuable for Ukraine in the face of Russia.
At the beginning of the year, he vetoed a 50 billion euro package, which was ultimately validated late.
While the two leaders were talking in kyiv, Russian bombings claimed other civilian victims the same day, killing two women in Nikopol and another in Kherson, two towns in the south of the country.
Volodymyr Zelensky and Viktor Orban therefore have rather cool relations and their rare meetings are very closely scrutinized.
The Hungarian leader, who arrived in kyiv in the morning, nevertheless spoke of his desire to “improve” bilateral relations, which are also marked by tensions surrounding the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.
In a telephone conversation on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Hungarian counterpart, Peter Szijjártó, “stressed the need for kyiv to unconditionally guarantee the rights of all national minorities living in the country,” according to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement.
In kyiv, however, “we are trying to leave the discussions of the past behind us,” Mr. Orban assured, thanking his host for the “frank and open” atmosphere of their exchanges. “We are at the disposal of Ukraine and we will do everything we can to help it,” he assured.
Peace plan
Hostile to Ukraine’s accession to the EU, he had finally agreed to leave the summit table of the leaders of the Twenty-Seven last December, the time for his 26 counterparts to decide to open accession negotiations with kyiv.
Asked Tuesday about Viktor Orban’s trip to Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described Mr. Orban as a man who “firmly defends the interests of his country.”
The Hungarian leader disapproves of the European sanctions voted against Russia and is trying to soften them. He has repeatedly called the Russian invasion of Ukraine a “military operation”, using the Kremlin’s expression to avoid saying “war”.
Last month, Mr Putin demanded that Ukrainian troops give up territory in the south and east of the country if they wanted a ceasefire, demands that Mr Zelensky immediately dismissed as a “Hitler-style” “ultimatum”.
At a major peace summit in Switzerland last month, however, Hungary endorsed a document calling for respect for Ukraine’s “territorial integrity” in any final peace deal.
The Ukrainian leader is seeking to rally international support for his peace plan, which calls for the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from the country, including from the Crimean Peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, and payment for damages caused since the invasion in February 2022.
Orban’s visit comes at a difficult time for the Ukrainian military, which is short of men and weapons as Russian forces slowly gain ground on the eastern front.