By BRUSSELS. Oct 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told reporters that he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin because he must keep “open channels of communication with the Russians” to promote a peace strategy.
“Russia and Hungary have a common neighbor called Ukraine, and we have a peaceful strategy, so we would like to keep communication channels open,” he said in Brussels on Thursday before the start of a European Council meeting, answering a question from journalists.
At the same time, journalists continued to ask Orban about this meeting, to which the Hungarian prime minister said that “you have a military strategy, and Hungary has a peaceful strategy.” “And we would like to do everything in order to have peace. Therefore, we keep open all the communication lines to the Russians. Otherwise, there will be no chance for peace. This is our strategy, so, we are proud of it. We are the only ones who speak for and in favor of peace, which would be in the interests of everyone in Europe,” he said.
Orban was also asked whether he supported a ceasefire (the previous question was about the war between Israel and Hamas, so most likely this question also related to his position regarding the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas), Orban said: “Ukrainian-Russian ceasefire fire? Yes.”
When asked when Hungary will stop blocking the allocation of the next tranche for Ukraine from the European Peace Facility, the Prime Minister said that they are waiting for the arrival of the Ukrainian delegation in Budapest to negotiate on this issue. “We are open and ready for a deal,” Orban assured.
