Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban says he will hold a conversation with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to discuss the planned summit between the U.S. and Russian presidents in Budapest.
“I will talk to President Putin this morning, before noon,” Orban told state radio on 17 October.
The Hungarian prime minister said he had ordered the creation of an organising committee and preparations for a possible meeting between Trump and Putin had begun. He did not give details.
Orban, a long-time Trump ally who also maintains close ties with Russia despite the war in Ukraine, said Europe should open its own diplomatic channels with Russian Federation and again accused the EU of taking what he called a “pro-war stance”.
He also said Budapest is “virtually the only place in Europe today where a meeting between Trump and Putin could take place” because Hungary, Orban said, has a “consistent” position on peace.
United States President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are scheduled to meet on 17 October. This meeting is expected to discuss the possibility of Ukraine receiving long-range Tomahawk missiles.
On the eve of this meeting, the US President had a nearly two-hour phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which he announced their meeting, which, according to the US President, could take place within two weeks in Hungary.
The choice of Budapest for a possible upcoming meeting between the US and Russian presidents will help bypass the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Putin, as Hungary had earlier announced its withdrawal from the ICC.
Donald Trump called his nearly two-hour phone conversation with Putin “very productive”.
Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said that during the conversation Putin repeated his thesis that Tomahawk missiles, if delivered to Ukraine, would not change the situation on the battlefield, but that relations between the US and Russia would be “substantially damaged, not to mention the settlement (of the war)”.
Trump confirmed that he had discussed the prospect of supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks with Putin and therefore “didn’t like the idea.”