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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Politics
Nicholas Cecil

Christmas ceasefire proposed for Ukraine war by Putin ally and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban

A Christmas ceasefire in the Ukraine war has been proposed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The nationalist leader also suggested another prisoner of war swap with Ukraine to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Wednesday, Orban’s chief of staff said.

“One (the ceasefire) was regarded as worthy of consideration ... in the other issue, in the POW swap, (Putin) was supportive,” Gergely Gulyas said.

He said Hungary wanted a ceasefire to last forever, “but now this was about the Christmas days”.

Poland has also been stepping up efforts to bring the conflict to an end.

The West is likely to treat the proposal by Orban, a Putin ally, with significant caution and the Kremlin swiftly alleged that Kyiv was not supportive of it.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky criticised Orban’s call to Putin, tweeting: “No one should boost their personal image at the expense of unity.”

He added: “I am grateful to @realDonaldTrump and many European leaders with whom we are already working to find the right and strong solutions for real peace. “

One of his aides also stressed any ceasefire would allow Russian troops to regroup for further attacks.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, during yesterday’s telephone conversation with President Putin, made a proposal on the eve of Christmas to carry out a major prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine, as well as to announce a Christmas ceasefire.”

Russia swiftly sent its proposal for a Christmas POW exchange to the Hungarian embassy but Ukraine refused all the proposals, Peskov alleged.

Doubts remain over whether Putin wants an end to the war, which he launched in February 2022, despite it leaving hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers dead and wounded, similarly high casualties among Ukrainian forces, and thousands of civilians killed.

The Russian president is believed to be seeking to grab as much land in Ukraine before Donald Trump becomes US in January ahead of possible peace talks.

The West, including Joe Biden’s outgoing administration, has also stepped up the supply of military aid to Kyiv, which has launched more attacks inside Russia using long range missiles supplied by America and Britain.

However, president-elect Trump sharply criticized Ukraine's use of US-supplied missiles deep into Russian territory in a Time magazine interview published on Thursday, comments that suggest he would alter this Washington policy toward Ukraine.

"It's crazy what's taking place. It's crazy. I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We're just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done," Trump said in an interview coinciding with him being named Time's "Person of the Year".

Putin is threatening retaliation following the latest strike on an airfield in the Rostov region, reportedly using six US-made long-range ATACMS ballistic missiles.

US intelligence sources believe Moscow may launch another experimental intermediate-range hypersonic missile at Ukraine in coming days.

Meanwhile, Russian troops have retaken control over the settlement of Novoivanovka in Russia’s Kursk region, the defence ministry in Moscow said on Thursday.

Ukrainian forces seized a chunk of territory in the region in a surprise incursion in August and Russia has been fighting since then to eject them.

Thousands of North Korean troops are reported to have been deployed to the region to support the efforts to recapture the land.

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