Putin tells Orban he is ready to discuss 'nuances' of Ukraine conflict

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday (July 5) to discuss peace in Ukraine, drawing warnings from fellow European Union leaders against appeasement and an insistence that he did not speak for the EU.

 

Hungary assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the bloc on Monday. Five days in and Orban has visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv and formed the "Patriots for Europe" alliance with other right-wing nationalists.

 

Now, he has chosen to go to Moscow on a "peace mission," days before a NATO summit that will address further military aid for Ukraine against what the Western defense alliance has called Russia's "unprovoked war of aggression."

 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that only unity and determination within the 27-nation EU would pave the way to a just and lasting peace in Ukraine."

 

Putin, who received Orban in the Kremlin, told him that he was ready to discuss the "nuances" of peace proposals to end the two-and-a-half-year-old conflict.

 

Putin said last month that Russia would end the war in Ukraine, which Moscow calls a special military operation, only if Kyiv agreed to drop its NATO ambitions and hand over the entirety of four provinces claimed by Moscow - demands Kyiv swiftly rejected as tantamount to surrender.