Hungary’s Viktor Orban has met with former US President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida where they discussed the “possibilities of peace”, the latest stop in the prime minister’s solo run to secure a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Orban, a longtime Trump supporter, has visited Ukraine, Russia and China in the past two weeks on a self-styled “peace mission”, which has angered Hungary’s NATO allies.
“It was an honour to visit President [Donald Trump] at Mar-a-Lago today. We discussed ways to make peace. The good news of the day: he’s going to solve it!,” Orban said on X.
Orban’s so-called peace initiative has irked many members of the European Union, whose rotating presidency Hungary took over at the start of this month.
On Friday, Germany’s foreign ministry said Orban had already caused damage in the first 12 days of his country’s rotating EU presidency.
“We have to see how the Hungarian council presidency continues,” a spokesperson for the ministry said, when asked how Germany planned to respond to Orban’s recent visits. “We are now on day 12 and it has already caused a lot of damage”.
Considered the closest European leader to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Orban was in the United States this week to attend a NATO summit hosted by President Joe Biden.
Peace mission 5.0
It was an honour to visit President @realDonaldTrump at Mar-a-Lago today. We discussed ways to make #peace. The good news of the day: he’s going to solve it! pic.twitter.com/AiTRsdexM5— Orbán Viktor (@PM_ViktorOrban) July 12, 2024
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday that Hungary believes a second Trump presidency would boost hopes for peace in Ukraine, and that Orban hoped to bring an end to the war through peace talks involving both Russia and Ukraine.
Trump has said he would quickly end the war, and advisers to the former president are reported to have presented him with a plan to end the conflict by, in part, making future US aid to Kyiv conditional on Ukraine joining peace talks.
The Kremlin said on Friday that Orban did not tell Putin of his plans to meet Trump, and the Russian president did not convey any message to Trump via Orban.
Orban’s meeting in Moscow last week with Putin in particular has vexed some NATO members, who said the trip handed legitimacy to the Russian leader when the West wants to isolate him over his invasion of Ukraine.
Orban had travelled to Kyiv before visiting Moscow.
Orban ‘adventurism’; NATO’s frustration
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said he was not informed by Orban of his onward trip to Russia, has dismissed the prime minister’s ambition of playing the peacemaker.
“Not all the leaders can make negotiations. You need to have some power for this,” Zelenskyy told a news conference at the NATO summit.
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, when asked about Orban’s peace efforts, said Ukraine would be rightly concerned about any attempt to negotiate a peace deal without involving Kyiv.
“Whatever adventurism is being undertaken without Ukraine’s consent or support is not something that’s consistent with our policy, the foreign policy of the United States,” Sullivan said.
Two European diplomats told Reuters that NATO allies were frustrated with Orban’s actions around the summit in Washington, but stressed that he had not blocked the alliance from taking action on Ukraine. Multiple EU leaders also made clear Orban was not speaking for the bloc in his discussions on the war in Ukraine.
“I don’t think there’s any point in having conversations with authoritarian regimes that are violating international law,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said of Orban.
Meeting in Beijing on Tuesday with Chinese President Xi Jinping for “peace mission 3.0”, Orban said China was key to “creating the conditions for peace” between Ukraine and Russia.
Hungary has also diverged from its NATO allies on policy towards China, which the Western military alliance said is an enabler of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine and poses challenges to security.
Hungary does not want NATO to become an “anti-China” bloc, and will not support it doing so, the country’s foreign minister Szijjarto said on Thursday.
