Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, one of many few European leaders who maintains heat relations with Moscow and has known as on Kyiv to capitulate to Russia’s calls for to finish the bloodshed, arrived in Ukraine on Tuesday morning for his first wartime go to to the nation, his spokesman said.
A vocal critic of supplying army and different monetary help to Ukraine who relishes his function because the odd man out in each the European Union and NATO, Mr. Orban stated in an interview with the Hungarian news media on Monday night time that the go to could be “the primary steps” in selling his imaginative and prescient for ending the battle.
That imaginative and prescient stands in stark distinction to the plan outlined by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, whose authorities has persistently stated that Russia should pull its troops out of Ukraine’s internationally acknowledged territory earlier than any peace talks can start. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, nevertheless, has shown no signs of backing down, leaving the 2 sides as far aside as ever.
“He’s making an attempt to interrupt out of political no man’s land within the E.U., and displaying a extra open strategy towards Kyiv could be key on this regard,” Edit Zgut-Przybylska, an assistant professor on the Polish Academy of Sciences who has written extensively about Russian affect in Hungary, stated of Mr. Orban.
Though Hungary just lately took over the rotating presidency of the European Union, she stated, he won’t be able to “occupy Brussels” as he has vowed, and due to this fact should discover a totally different tactic to exert his affect.
Regardless of Mr. Orban’s open embrace of Moscow — together with a meeting with Mr. Putin in Beijing, the place he instructed the Russian chief that Hungary “by no means wished to confront Russia” and “has at all times been desirous to broaden contacts” — Mr. Zelensky stated it was essential that Ukraine’s and Hungary’s leaders maintain formal discussions.
“We have to arrange a constructive assembly between our nations, as a result of we’ve got frequent borders, we’re neighbors, and we have to speak,” Mr. Zelensky said in December after the 2 leaders had a short, animated conversation in Argentina in the course of the inauguration ceremony of that nation’s newly elected president.
Mr. Zelensky stated that the 2 had engaged in a “frank” dialogue and that he had pressed Mr. Orban on his resistance to Ukraine’s bid to affix the European Union.
“I requested him to present me only one cause,” Mr. Zelensky stated. “Not three, not 5, not 10, only one cause, and I’m ready for a solution.”
Mr. Orban instructed reporters after the encounter that he had accepted an invite to go to Ukraine, with a caveat.
“I instructed him I’d be at his disposal,” Mr. Orban stated. “We simply must make clear one query: About what?”
That remained unclear as Mr. Orban’s motorcade made its method to the Hungarian Embassy on Tuesday earlier than his anticipated assembly with Mr. Zelensky.
“The journey doesn’t imply that the Hungarian authorities will make a U-turn in politics,” Professor Zgut-Przybylska stated. “Orban has been enjoying this ‘peacock’ dance for a decade, and Hungary’s power dependency on Russia will stay stronger than ever.”