Hungary’s Prime Minister meets Putin in Moscow to discuss the war – criticism from the EU

• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss peace in Ukraine, despite warnings from EU leaders against a policy of appeasement.
• Hungary began its six-month EU Council Presidency on Monday during a visit by Orban to Ukrainian President Zelensky.
• Orban’s visit to Moscow comes just days before a NATO summit on military aid for Ukraine.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to discuss peace in Ukraine. Other EU leaders warned him against a policy of appeasement and stressed that he was not speaking for the EU.

Hungary took over the six-month Council Presidency on Monday. Five days later, Orban visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv and founded the “Patriots for Europe” alliance with other right-wing nationalists.

Now he has decided to travel to Moscow on a “peace mission” just days before a NATO summit to discuss further military aid for Ukraine against Russia’s “unprovoked war of aggression,” as the Western defense alliance calls it.

HUNGARY STARTS EU PRESIDENCY WITH TRUMP-LIKE CALL TO “MAKE EUROPE GREAT AGAIN”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that only unity and determination within the 27 EU states could pave the way to a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.

In this pool photo released by Russian state news agency Sputnik, Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the Kremlin in Moscow on July 5, 2024. (VALERY SHARIFULIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

“Appeasement will not stop Putin,” she said on X.

Putin, who received Orban in the Kremlin, told him he was ready to discuss the “nuances” of peace proposals to end the war that has been going on for two and a half years.

Putin said last month that Russia would end the war in Ukraine, which Moscow calls a special military operation, only if Kyiv gave up its NATO ambitions and handed over all four provinces claimed by Moscow. Kyiv immediately rejected that demand, saying it would amount to surrender.

Hungary’s head of state visits Ukraine for the first time since the war began and holds peace talks with Selenskyj

“SKEPTICISM” TOWARDS HUNGARY

An EU diplomat said Orban’s decision to meet Putin in Moscow de facto ended Hungary’s EU Council Presidency, which will last until December 31, before it had really begun.

“The scepticism of the EU member states was unfortunately justified – it is only about promoting Budapest’s interests,” said the diplomat, who requested anonymity for political reasons.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda accused Orban of undermining the EU presidency. “If you really want peace, you don’t shake hands with a bloody dictator, but make every effort to support Ukraine,” he wrote on X.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Orban was “in no way representing the EU” in Moscow, and Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said the visit undermined EU interests.

Pavel Havlicek, research fellow at the Association for International Affairs, described Orban’s visit as an abuse of the power vacuum in Brussels and a dangerous undermining of the common European position.

Orban, a critic of Western military aid to Ukraine who has the friendliest relations with Putin of any EU leader, said he knew he had no EU mandate for the trip but that peace could not be achieved “from a comfortable armchair in Brussels.”

“We cannot sit back and wait for the war to miraculously end,” he wrote on X.

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The role of the EU Presidency is to chair meetings of member states, seek consensus and negotiate agreements on legislation with the European Parliament.

At a time of transition, with the new European Commission not due to take office until November, analysts warn that Budapest’s activities at the forefront of EU policy-making are likely to be limited.

The ministers said Hungary wanted to make an impression with its presidency, which began with the urgent call to “Make Europe Great Again,” recalling former US President Donald Trump, an ally of Orban.

“We want to leave a mark,” Orban’s spokesman Zoltán Kovacs said on Thursday before reports of the Moscow trip emerged. “The prime minister will use the presidency politically.”