Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday to consider a ceasefire to accelerate an end to the war with Russia and also said he wanted a big cooperation agreement with Kyiv.
Orban, who is an outspoken critic of Western military aid to Ukraine and has the warmest relations of any EU leader with Russian President Vladimir Putin, held talks with Zelenskiy during his first trip to Kyiv in more than a decade.
In brief joint statements to reporters after the talks, Orban said he valued Kyiv's push to promote Zelenskiy's vision of peace at an international summit in May in Switzerland and its aim to hold a second, follow-up summit later this year.
"I asked the president to think about whether we could reverse the order, and speed up peace talks with making a ceasefire first," Orban said.
"A ceasefire connected to a deadline would give a chance to speed up peace talks. I explored this possibility with the president and I am grateful for his honest answers and negotiation."
Zelenskiy, who spoke before Orban, did not respond to those comments.
The Ukrainian leader touted the possibility of a broad bilateral cooperation agreement between Ukraine and Hungary.
"...the content of our dialogue today on all issues can become the basis for a bilateral document between our states, a document that will regulate all our mutual relations," he said.
Welcoming Zelenskiy's comments, Orban said Hungary would like to help in modernising Ukraine's economy.
Ties between the neighbours came under heavy strain after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, with Budapest often opposing European Union efforts to support Kyiv.
Under Orban, who upset Western partners by holding talks with Putin last October, Hungary has repeatedly accused Ukraine of curbing the rights of roughly 150,000 ethnic Hungarians living in the far west of Ukraine.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is keen to secure Hungary's backing as it relies heavily on financial and military support from the 27-member EU, where unanimity is needed for many decisions.
CHALLENGES
Orban linked Tuesday's surprise Ukraine visit to Hungary having assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the European Council on Monday.
"The aim of the Hungarian presidency is to contribute to solving the challenges ahead of the European Union. That's why my first trip was to Kyiv," Orban wrote on Facebook after he arrived in Kyiv.
Last week, the EU opened formal membership talks with Kyiv at its summit in Brussels, giving Ukraine a morale-lifting boost, although a long and tough road still lies ahead before it can join the bloc.
Zelenskiy and Orban were filmed on the sidelines of that summit in what looked like an emotional exchange.
Last year, Orban told Putin that Hungary had never wanted to oppose Russia. In early 2024, it took the EU leaders weeks to break the Hungarian prime minister's veto to extend 50 billion euros ($53.67 billion) in new aid to Ukraine.
Ukraine has denied Budapest's assertion that it is restricting the rights of Hungarian speakers in western Ukraine but says it is open to addressing any concerns.
Kyiv passed a law in 2017 that required all schools to teach students over the age of 10 in the Ukrainian language. Hungary saw this as a breach of the ethnic Hungarian minority's rights.
Some changes were made in December 2023 when the issue became critical for Kyiv's EU accession talks. Budapest said the changes were an improvement but didn't go far enough.
© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2024.
35 Comments
nandakandamanda
Good to see Viktor Orban in a more positive light. I hope something good will come of this initiative. Perhaps Orban can be a conduit between Putin and Zelenskiy and perhaps Ukraine will find a way to allow minorities like their Hungarian and Russian speakers to keep their own language but learn Ukrainian too, somewhat like the bilingual Canadian model.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Viktor's war criminal friend Putin has not put an unconditional ceasefire on the table.
nik
Zelensky is not a president. his term of office has passed. This is just a figure convenient for Western countries.
TaiwanIsNotChina
He's the only one Putin can negotiate with to stop his conscripts dying.
TokyoLiving
Let's see if Orban can convince the clown of the kyiv regime to surrender and capitulate with Russia before all the rest of his regime's forces disappear..
Kuku
It's most likely a futile idea. On the one hand Putin said that Ukraine has someone to negotiate with (Zelensky is an expired president). I don't know who Putin was referring to, but only Yanukovych comes to mind. He is the only legal one in Ukraine. It's the first. And the second is that Lavrov has already stated once that this time Russia will negotiate without a cease-fire, if! Ukraine can do it unilaterally. But then Russia will not shoot by definition.
deanzaZZR
Hungary wants a little nibble out of Western Ukraine with the Hungarian population. That Hungary got carved up after WW1 with Hungarians scattered across several countries was criminal.
Kuku
But why guess readind tea leaves, there has already been a news report that Ukraine has refused Orban's offer.
Other than that, the first lady of Ukraine ordered a new Buggatti for 4.5 million euros :) The news is more interesting:)))) Ukrainians are happy
2020hindsights
nandakandamanda
Orban doesn't support Ukraine, he wants Russia to prevail here. A ceasefire would only favour Putin, who doesn't want peace. Putin wants a pause to regroup and come back harder.
2020hindsights
Kuku
Are seriously proposing that Orban speak for Ukraine?!
You can't be serious. Yanukovych had people shoot at Maidan protestors before fleeing to Russia.
Kuku
Another shameless lie from your mouth! You lie too often
Kuku
Yanukovych is, of course, a scum, but he did not order to shoot the Maidan! You are either ignorant, don't read anything, or are deliberately lying to an uninformed audience. If Yanukovych had ordered the opening of fire, this tragedy in Ukraine would not have happened.
2020hindsights, my advice: never tell lies
RichardPearce
So, a few carrots dangled in front of Zelensky (and western Ukrainians) to act reasonably. But where's the stick? Well, seeing as the Azovian regime apparently (according to it) successfully crushed a 'Revolution of Indignity' (western Ukrainians who, realizing that the regime is not going to allow itself to be voted out of office, planned to throw it out) the stick is the hands on the clock.
JJE
There are a number of issues here which need to be addressed:
Orban now has considerable power with his new role at the top the EU.
He hasn't changed his tune one note.
Transcarpathian Hungarians minority in Ukraine deserve legal rights (I.E. the 2017 language ban and other negative measures need to be reversed, which mind you stand in contrast to EU member rules). This will be non-negotiable and completely omitted in this article. Orban will not let them down.
Kyiv is losing and everyone knows it.
Poetic Justice it was Orban to deliver the final word of reason.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Yanukovych rules over an apartment in Moscow. Your side couldn't even manage to puppet governments right.
So Russia still believes that only Ukraine has to stop firing. Some nice fantasy there. Remember, you believe Russian terrorists are on the advance.
TaiwanIsNotChina
What exactly are these carrots? Not being annihilated on the good word of the clear war criminal Putin? Forgive Ukrainians for saying where those carrots should go.
TaiwanIsNotChina
The country of your birth and its clown should try a capitulation first.
JJE
Orban has a point. Transcarpathian Hungarians shouldn't have been maltreated by the post 2014 coup regime like all the other minorities.
The concept the EU would welcome such a regime into their midst runs against everything the EU alleges to stands for.
Orban won't allow such an affront to public decency.
Kuku
Are you sure there was such an intention? Even if so... don’t forget, "you can’t understand Russia with your mind" (Tyutchev, great Russian poet; I think the lover of Potemkin villages knows well the poem )...so...
TaiwanIsNotChina
Thankfully his position is weak as all Putin lickspittles.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Yes it is very difficult to understand the deranged.
JJE
Orban will not blow smoke up someone's shirt for cynical reasons.
He is a truth teller and won't toe the line. This is why certain quarters detest him.
Kuku
More than 10 mlns Russians, Tartars, Buryats, Kazakhs, Ukrainians rule over appartements in Moscow and what? There are French, Germans, even Americans among apartments owners in Russia not only in Moscow. There are even owners-enemies of Russia.... Snowden rules over an appartement as well...
And what???
Kuku
I have been long searching for a suitable word:)))) How are you going to defeat deranged Russia if you can’t analyze its plans and actions? in this activity you look more like comedy text generators
JJE
Orban has always understood the perverse goal by the Atlanticists of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia is doomed to failure and blowback.
TaiwanIsNotChina
All the people you mentioned are powerless.
Guess we will have to rely on the deranged never being able to get things organized, like Russia failing miserably in its 72 hour operation to take Kyiv.
Kuku
You see yourself you have nothing to tell, .....generator of texts:)
PTownsend
Orban should tend to problems in Hungary, a nation with one of the highest rates of alcoholiam, rivaling those of Russia and Belarus. Could it be that life under authoritarian regimes is not always so nice?
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=hungary+belarus+russia+alcoholism&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Kuku
Zel and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban have agreed to open the first school for Ukrainian-speaking children in Hungary.
"Ukrainians used to live in Hungary, but now there are a number of questions.
We must take care of these people, they must be able to work, live in safety and provide an appropriate school for their children.
Therefore, I was very pleased to hear the president's initiative to open a Ukrainian school in Hungary," Orban underlined.
And this is despite the fact that:
2020hindsights
JJE
There was no coup in 2014.
Mr Goodman
Curious how you can form an opinion unless understanding deranged ?
TaiwanIsNotChina
You don't have to understand all diseased thought processes to know that someone is clearly not well.
Kuku
You consider it a credible source? Oh, my God! You keep people here as idiots? You will never find real data on alcoholism on the Internet. The WHO data, which is available only from 2018, is also unreliable, only because the WHO office left Russia and Belarus a long time ago. And those who have seen how much the French, Finns and residents of the Baltic countries drink, will never believe you that Russians drink the most. Another disinformation of the ignorant audience
Kuku
There was no coup in 2014.
JT, don't you have other experts? These are all ignorant and liars. Change, better - fire them
2020hindsights
Kuku
There was no coup in 2014.
Unless you can supply evidence of a coup in 2014, I will continue to correct the record.