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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has presented a peace plan to end the conflict in Ukraine, which would be “on the desk of every EU prime minister”, according to his adviser Balázs Orbán, while Russia remains skeptical about the plan’s realism.
In an interview with the Magyar Nemzet newspaper on Tuesday, he said that the Hungarian approach “is based on a realistic assessment of the situation, realistic goals and an appropriate timetable.”
Since early July, when Hungary holds the rotating EU presidency, Viktor Orbán has been on an intensive international tour in an attempt to outline a peace solution. He met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 5 in Moscow, and Chinese President Xi Jinping on July 8 in Beijing. He then flew to the United States to meet with former President Donald Trump on July 11.
According to Balázs Orbán, Europeans and the current US administration “vote for the continuation of the war”, which contrasts with the Hungarian desire to “create the conditions for peace negotiations.” The advisor stressed that Hungary has “fresh and concrete information on the way of thinking of the main actors and mediators, to maneuver between different interests.”
Hungary intends to use its EU presidency to promote this peace plan, despite the “perverse attacks” it has received from other European leaders. Balázs Orbán criticised the fact that “the other 26 member states” have not yet agreed on a common position. According to him, Europe must no longer “sit back and wait” and must take matters into its own hands.
On the diplomatic front, there are encouraging signs. Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is in favor of Russia’s participation in a future peace summit hosted by kyiv. “I think that Russian representatives should participate in this second summit,” Zelensky told reporters in Kiev on July 15, referring to a new international meeting. He said he hoped to have a “plan” for such a meeting by November.
A date that coincides with the American presidential election, scheduled for November 5. This exchange comes after the conference organized in Switzerland, mid-June, called “on peace in Ukraine” in the West, but from which Russia had been excluded, provoking strong criticism from China and several non-Western countries, including India and Turkey.
For its part, the Kremlin has been rather reserved after the Ukrainian president’s statements. “The first peace summit was not a peace summit at all. So, obviously, we must first understand what it is [Volodymyr Zelensky] “I mean by that,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with Zvezda, which was broadcast yesterday on Telegram.
It is worth recalling that Ukraine decreed in 2023 a ban on any negotiations with Russia as long as Vladimir Putin is president of that country. This opening seems to be a breach of its own principles.
Volodymyr Zelensky had set several conditions for peace since 2022, notably mentioning the withdrawal of Russian forces from the regions that Ukraine still claims, including Crimea, which was annexed to Russia by referendum in 2014.
Principles considered unrealistic by Moscow.
In a foreign policy speech delivered on June 14, President Putin indicated that negotiations with Ukraine could begin as soon as it withdrew its troops from the Donetsk People’s Republics (DPR) and Lugansk People’s Republics (LPR) as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, and agreed to opt for a “neutral status – non-aligned, non-nuclear”, also mentioning “demilitarization”, “denazification” and a lifting of sanctions against Russia.