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Viktor Orbán arrives in Kiev on first trip to wartime Ukraine
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrived in Kiev on Tuesday, marking the first time since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that the EU’s most pro-Russian leader has visited the war-torn country.
Orbán, the most prominent critic of the EU and NATO continued military aid to Kyivand one of the few Western leaders to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin since the 2022 invasion, he arrived a day after his country assumed the rotating presidency of the EU council.
Orban will meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top officials just days after the two spoke at an EU summit in Brussels, according to officials from both countries. They shared a private conversation before the Ukrainian called on all EU leaders to step up their military support for Kiev.
The leaders will make brief statements at the conclusion of the meeting in Kiev but will not hold a news conference, according to a Ukrainian official close to Zelenskyy.
The Hungarian Prime Minister has regularly opposed financial aid to Ukraine and walked out of the room during a meeting of EU leaders in December rather than vote against the decision to open accession negotiations with Ukraine — a significant milestone on the country’s path to becoming a full EU member.
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Orbán’s government also vetoed seven legal decisions supported by the other 26 EU member states that release 6.6 billion euros linked to arms supplies for Ukraine. It blocked the start of formal EU accession negotiations between Kiev and Brussels for much of the past 12 months, before lifting its blockade last month.
Budapest has justified its hardline stance on Ukraine by claiming that Kiev is failing to meet its demands for guaranteeing the rights of the country’s Hungarian minority. The criteria for EU membership include minority rights.
Almost every EU leader except Orbán has visited Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. He is also one of only two — along with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer — having met Putin at that time.
At a conference in Budapest in December, the Hungarian prime minister said he had accepted an invitation from Zelenskyy to visit Kiev, but added: “I told him I would be at his disposal. We just need to clarify one question: about what?”
Zelenskyy also invited Orbán to the Ukraine Peace Summit in Switzerland last month. Orbán declined, but sent his foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó.
In response to efforts to block Hungary from taking over the EU’s rotating presidency, Orbán has promised other leaders to be a responsible broker of EU legislation, according to people close to the negotiations.