First, Orbán traveled to Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 2, the day after Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. There, Orbán asked Zelensky to consider a ceasefire with a deadline.
Orbán said, “I raised the possibility of a ceasefire tied to a deadline that would offer a chance to accelerate peace talks.”
In a later interview with the Swiss paper Die Weltwoche, Orbán said that he hadn’t sought to sway Ukraine’s leader but merely to clarify his position.
“My intention was not to convince Zelensky, and not to make a proposal for him; my mission was rather to make understandable, to clarify what is his position and where are his limits when we speak about peace,” Orbán explained.
“My purpose is to make a report to the European Council on the possibility of peace. In order to […] identify the possibility of peace, first we have to understand what are the limits of the others,” he added.
On July 5, Orbán traveled to Moscow on the next stage of what he called a “peace mission,” meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss resolving the situation in Ukraine.
“Naturally, I am ready to discuss the details of the matter with you, and I expect you to share your position, the position of your European partners, with me,” Putin told Orbán on a live broadcast by Russia-1.
Although Hungary took on the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU on July 1, Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, made clear that Orbán had received no mandate from the EU Council to visit Moscow and entreat with Putin.
“Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s visit to Moscow takes place exclusively in the framework of the bilateral relations between Hungary and Russia,” said Borrel, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Borrell said holding the presidency did “not entail any external representation of the Union.” He added that the EU’s position excluded any official contacts between the EU and Putin. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also issued a statement saying Orbán was not representing the security alliance but his own country at the talks in Moscow.
Finally, Orbán met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on July 8 to discuss a potential Ukraine peace deal. In a post on his Facebook page, Orbán said China was “a key power” in creating the conditions for peace in the Russo-Ukraine war. “This is why I came to meet with President Xi in Beijing, just two months after his official visit to Budapest,” he said.
Despite the efforts made by the Hungarian premier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Orbán could not mediate between Russia and Ukraine to end the conflict. According to Zelensky, only powerful economies or countries with more powerful armed forces than Russia could broker a potential resolution.
“Are there many such countries around the world? Not many,” Zelensky told a news conference during a visit to neighboring Poland. “I believe the U.S. and China are such countries. And the EU; not one country, but the whole EU.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia appreciated Orbán’s efforts to clarify the positions of Russia and Ukraine on resolving their conflict.
“Mr. Orbán is taking a serious initiative to compare the positions of the different sides based on original sources, and we appreciate these efforts,” Peskov told a news briefing. “There is a whole set of disagreements among the parties concerned, but at least Mr. Orbán is making a very serious attempt to understand the essence of these disagreements, which is very much appreciated,” Peskov added.
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of July 12, 2024.
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