President Donald Trump’s announcement that Budapest could host a second summit[1] with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin[2] to end the war in Ukraine[3] was celebrated by Hungary’s authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán[4] on Friday.
“Budapest is essentially the only place in Europe today where such a meeting could be held, primarily because Hungary is almost the only pro-peace country,” Orbán told state radio, according to The Associated Press. “For three years, we have been the only country that has consistently, openly, loudly and actively advocated for peace.”
Orbán, who has maintained his far-right populist rule for 15 years, also suggested that his opposition to Western nations supplying military and financial aid to Ukraine[5] had played a role in his capital being selected as the site for the talks.
While details of the agenda are yet to be finalized, in an earlier post on X, Orbán said preparations were underway and his landlocked country was “an island of PEACE.”
Trump announced his second meeting this year with Putin on Thursday, the day before he was set to sit down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy[6] at the White House.
“I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation,” he wrote on Truth Social after his call with the Russian leader, adding that he hoped the Budapest summit would end the “inglorious war.”
Zelenskyy, who is expected to push for more military support, including long-range Tomahawk missiles that could be used to strike deep inside Russia[7], said the talks showed Putin was on the defensive. “We can already see that Moscow is rushing to resume dialogue as soon as it hears about Tomahawks,” Zelenskyy wrote on X shortly after the summit was announced.
Trump and Putin met in Alaska for a highly anticipated summit[8] on ending the war in August. But their three-hour meeting did not result in any movement toward peace, and Russia has continued to bombard cities across Ukraine on an almost nightly basis since then.
Trump’s proposal for three-way talks with Putin and Zelenskyy also failed to materialize.
The Budapest summit is expected to take place after talks next week between teams led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
For Orbán who is facing pressure at home over high food prices, health care and a poorly performing economy, “it is an interesting distraction from those things,” according to Emily Ferris, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank.
Hungary “is a country that doesn’t normally have such a level of international clout, so, for Orbán, this is a bit of an outsized role he is playing in foreign policy here,” she told NBC News in a telephone interview Friday.
“There aren’t a huge amount of places where Putin could comfortably meet Trump in Europe,” Ferris said, pointing to the fact that the Russian leader faces an arrest warrant[9] from the International Criminal Court for the “war crime” of overseeing the unlawful abduction and deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia — an allegation denied by Moscow.
Hungary is a signatory to the ICC, which is based in the Netherlands, meaning that Orbán’s government would be required to arrest Putin if he set foot on Hungarian soil. After a visit in April by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu[10], who also faces a warrant from the ICC on suspicion of crimes against humanity, Orbán said he would start the process of withdrawing from the court.
Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told a press briefing Friday that his country would receive Putin “with respect, host him, and provide the conditions for him to negotiate with the American president.”
However, Ferris cautioned that the summit could backfire on Orbán, who is widely considered to be Putin’s closest partner in the European Union and who has already been criticized for continuing to purchase oil and natural gas from Russia.
Hungarian officials have insisted that geographical and infrastructural constraints make it nearly impossible for Hungary to transition to using fossil fuels supplied from the West. But earlier this month, Trump called on all NATO countries, including Hungary, to cease purchasing Russian oil, since he believes the Russia-Ukraine war would end if they did so.
“If Hungary, if it’s not already, is seen as just giving a platform for a Kremlin narrative on Ukraine, that could be quite damaging,” Ferris said.
References
- ^ Budapest could host a second summit (www.nbcnews.com)
- ^ Vladimir Putin (www.nbcnews.com)
- ^ war in Ukraine (www.nbcnews.com)
- ^ Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (www.nbcnews.com)
- ^ military and financial aid to Ukraine (www.nbcnews.com)
- ^ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (www.nbcnews.com)
- ^ long-range Tomahawk missiles that could be used to strike deep inside Russia (www.nbcnews.com)
- ^ Alaska for a highly anticipated summit (www.nbcnews.com)
- ^ faces an arrest warrant (www.nbcnews.com)
- ^ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (www.nbcnews.com)