Orban defies EU officials with Moscow visit

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The Hungarian prime minister is visiting Russia on Friday to discuss peace, days after he made a similar trip to Ukraine

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is visiting Russia, his office has confirmed. His trip comes days after he traveled to Kiev to urge Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to consider an immediate ceasefire with Russia and start peace talks with the country.

Budapest currently holds the rotating EU presidency, but Orban isn’t making the trip on behalf of the union, he told Hungarian media earlier in the day

05 July 2024
10:12 GMT
“You cannot make peace from a comfortable armchair in Brussels,” Orban stressed on social media. “We cannot sit back and wait for the war to miraculously end.”
10:11 GMT
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a vocal supporter of Kiev, lashed out at Orban after rumors of his pending visit started circulating in the media on Thursday. Tusk said he could not believe such a visit could happen.
During his weekly interview on Radio Kossuth on Friday, Orban said he wanted to promote peace – a task for which no mandate was needed, in his opinion – and by doing that serve as “a tool in the hands of God.”
Tusk reacted to the remark, saying he wondered whose hands would be holding the tool.
10:04 GMT
Orban’s visit is taking place “in the framework of the bilateral relations between Hungary and Russia,” the EU’s press service stressed in a statement. Orban “has not received any mandate from the EU Council to visit Moscow,” and the economic bloc maintains its current stance on the Ukraine conflict, it said.
“That position excludes official contacts between the EU and President Putin. The Hungarian prime minister is thus not representing the EU in any form,” it stressed.