Orban meets Putin in Moscow, sparking outrage in the EU | International

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is once again the free verse, wayward student of the European Union. The national-populist politician, the European leader closest to the Kremlin, arrived in Moscow this Friday – as his international spokesman, Zoltán Kovács, confirmed on social networks – to meet the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. His visit, the first by a European leader after Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, has raised a storm of disapproval in the community club. The EU has warned Orbán, who has just begun the six-month rotating presidency of the EU Council and arrived in the Russian capital after a visit to Kiev, where he met President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce a ceasefire, that he has no mandate to negotiate anything with Putin on behalf of the EU.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has rejected the visit: “Appeasement will not stop Putin. Only unity and determination will pave the way to a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine,” she said on social networks. Several leaders, including European Council President Charles Michel, tried to contact Orbán on Thursday, without success, after Hungarian investigative media broke the news of the Moscow visit. “You cannot make peace from a comfortable chair in Brussels,” was the Hungarian’s reaction on his country’s radio this Friday morning. “Even if the EU president has no mandate to negotiate on behalf of the EU, we cannot sit back and wait for the war to end miraculously. We will become an important tool to take the first steps towards peace. That’s what our peace mission is about,” he said. The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, has asked himself on social networks “in whose hands is that tool.”

Orban’s international spokesman, Kovacs, admitted on Thursday in front of a group of European reporters in Budapest that the Hungarian leader does not have the European power to negotiate on behalf of the Twenty-Seven and that he went to Kiev on a bilateral visit. However, the priority of the semester of Hungary’s presidency is “peace”, he launched. The Hungarian prime minister wants to present himself as a mediator, a bridge between Moscow, Kiev and Brussels.

This visit, the mere idea that he is going to raise the topic of possible peace talks with Putin, far from the plan drawn up by Ukraine, has caused an earthquake in Brussels. “The EU’s position on Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is reflected in a number of conclusions of the European Council. “This position excludes official contacts between the EU and President Putin,” Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the Community for Foreign Policy and Security, said in a statement. “The Hungarian Prime Minister does not represent the EU in any way,” the head of European diplomacy said, reminding that Putin is accused by the International Criminal Court and has an arrest warrant for the forced deportation of children from Russia to Ukraine.

Orban, as always, acts as he pleases. The Hungarian leader and his government, which he has led for 14 years, have constantly torpedoed measures to support Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. Hungary has successively extended 14 packages of sanctions against the Kremlin and its satellites since the start of the large-scale invasion and blocked more than 6 billion euros from the European Peace Fund, which serves to refund member states part of the money they have devoted to sending weapons to Ukraine. Budapest has refused to send military materials and has requested numerous exemptions in order not to participate in these plans.

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Orban’s visit to Moscow comes just days before the leaders of 32 NATO allies, including Hungary’s prime minister, meet in Washington for the Atlantic alliance’s annual summit.

Putin calls for the disarmament of Ukraine

This official visit is not Orban’s first rudeness towards Brussels. The Hungarian leader was the first European leader to meet face-to-face with Putin after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against the Russian president for war crimes. The two leaders met in Beijing in October 2023, where the Central European politician told Putin that “Hungary never wants to confront Russia.”

Orban pressed Zelensky for a ceasefire that the Kremlin would only accept if it takes its side on the battlefield. “(Ukraine must) take steps that are irreversible and acceptable to Russia,” Putin said on Thursday. Among other steps, Moscow demands that Ukraine disarm. The president himself announced in mid-June that he was willing to consider a ceasefire if the Ukrainian armed forces completely withdraw from the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia and Kiev officially abandons its membership in NATO.

The Russian president proposes a maximum ceasefire that would leave Ukraine in a very vulnerable position, and justifies it by his account of the failed Russian attack on Kiev in 2022. Putin said this Thursday that his armed forces had halted their invasion of the Ukrainian capital “at the request of our Western partners”, but no reciprocal measures were taken by the Zelensky government. The reality, as perceived within the Russian military, is that the invasion was very poorly planned by the high command and that the attack on Kiev risked being completely disastrous for the Kremlin, which had retreated to better defensive positions.

“Therefore, we cannot go ahead and declare a ceasefire in the hope that the other side will take other positive steps,” Putin said on the eve of his meeting with Orban.

Orban met Putin in Moscow on February 1, 2022, for what he defined as “a peace mission.” “I want to reassure you that none of the EU leaders wants war or conflict. “We are ready for a rational compromise,” the Hungarian leader said when the Kremlin bought time to deploy its troops. Putin thanked him for having “done a lot” for relations with Russia and signed an agreement to export cheap gas to Hungary. Just 21 days later, Russian armed forces launched the largest invasion seen in Europe since World War II against Ukraine.

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