Earlier this week, Orban visited Kyiv the place he urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to contemplate a ceasefire to speed up an finish to the conflict with Russia.
“The EU rotating presidency has no mandate to interact with Russia on behalf of the EU,” Charles Michel, the president of the council of European Union leaders stated on social media platform X reacting to Orban’s go to to Moscow.
“No discussions about Ukraine can happen with out Ukraine,” he added.
Hungary, a member of the EU and NATO, has refused to ship weapons to Ukraine and vocally criticized EU sanctions towards Russia whereas stopping in need of utilizing its veto energy to dam them.
Whereas international locations in western Europe have made severe efforts to wean themselves off Russian gasoline since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, landlocked Hungary will get most of its gasoline from Russia.
It signalled in June that it had no plans to desert pure gasoline imports from Russia and sought to deepen enterprise ties with Moscow in non-sanctioned areas.