Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that “the peace summit for Ukraine has not been removed from the agenda,” but emphasized that “it will not take place within a week.”
“The date is uncertain, but the summit will definitely happen. Everyone knows that the Russians will reach an agreement with the Americans,” Orbán told Hungarian state television on Friday, according to the Associated Press (AP).
He added that “the only problem is that Europeans have declared the Russian president a war criminal, and now they find it difficult to meet with him. The American president hasn’t done so, which means he can meet with the Russian president at any time.”
According to Orbán, “Europeans are worried because we also need to negotiate with the Russians.”
Orbán — known as a harsh critic of the European Union and an ally of former U.S. President Donald Trump — is considered Vladimir Putin’s closest partner within the EU. He has maintained friendly relations with Moscow even after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“It’s clear that if there were no sanctions, if we weren’t spending money on the war in Ukraine, and if we restarted economic cooperation with the Russians, the European economy — including Hungary’s — would be in a completely different place,” Orbán stressed.
“In war, there is no progress; in peace, there is progress. That’s the case now,” he added.
Meanwhile, EU leaders have asked the European Commission to prepare options to support Ukraine’s economic and military needs for the next two years but have not agreed to use frozen Russian assets for that purpose.
Unlike most EU countries that support Kyiv with funds, weapons, and political backing, Hungary — under Orbán’s leadership — follows a different course: it refuses to send weapons to Ukraine, calls for lifting sanctions against Russia, and maintains a critical stance toward Kyiv and its EU allies
