In this photo released by the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Press Office, Ukrainian President Zelensky (right) and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hold a meeting in Kiev on Tuesday.
Zoltan Fischer/Hungarian Prime Minister’s Press Office/MTI/Associated Press
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Zoltan Fischer/Hungarian Prime Minister’s Press Office/MTI/Associated Press
BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev on Tuesday, his first visit to the country since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Orban’s press chief confirmed to Hungarian news agency MTI that the prime minister had arrived in the Ukrainian capital in the morning for talks. Bertalan Khavasi said the main topic of the meeting will be opportunities to build peace as Ukraine resists Russian aggression.
Kiev officials did not confirm Orban’s arrival.
Orban’s visit is a rare move in the long-strained relationship between the two countries. Orban, known as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest EU ally, has often blocked, delayed or downplayed EU efforts to provide aid to Ukraine and sanction Moscow, frustrating Zelensky and other EU leaders.
He also accuses Kiev of mistreating the Hungarian minority in Ukraine’s western Transcarpathia region, a community he has used to justify his refusal to provide arms to Ukraine or allow weapons to be transferred across the two countries’ shared border.
The self-proclaimed “illiberal” leader has long been accused by European partners of dismantling domestic democratic institutions and stubbornly undermining key EU policy priorities. The EU has frozen more than $20 billion in funding to Budapest over alleged rule-of-law violations and corruption, and Orban has launched multiple anti-EU campaigns, describing it as an overly centralized and repressive organization.
The visit comes a day after Hungary takes over the six-month EU presidency, a position that carries little real power but can be used to set the tone of the bloc’s agenda. Hungarian officials say they will act as an “honest broker” despite concerns among some EU lawmakers that Hungary’s democratic record makes it unfit to lead the bloc.
Orban’s trip comes as he seeks to recruit members to a new nationalist coalition that he hopes will soon become the largest right-wing group in the European Parliament. On Sunday, Orban met in Vienna with the leaders of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party and the Czech main opposition party to announce the establishment of a new organization “European Patriots”.
The trio will need to attract lawmakers from at least four other EU countries to successfully form a group in the new European Parliament in June. Right-wing nationalist parties across Europe have consolidated their positions in elections, but ideological differences over the war in Ukraine and cooperation with Russia have often hindered deeper alliances between some parties.
