Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has travelled to Washington, where he will hold a meeting with US President Donald Trump.
According to Orban, his trip to Washington is aimed at opening “a new chapter in Hungarian-American relations with President Trump.”
“Our goal-establishing a strategic partnership that includes energy relations, investments, defence cooperation and negotiating peace after the Russia-Ukraine war. We are working on an agreement that is based on mutual benefit and serves the interests of all Hungarian people,” he wrote on Facebook.
Hungary depends on Russian Federation for oil and gas imports. Unlike many of its EU neighbours, who worked to reduce their dependence on Russian energy resources after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Hungary has since increased its purchases.
That dependence could now pose a risk to Hungary’s energy security from U.S. sanctions against major Russian oil producers-a move that aims to bring Russia to the negotiating table to end the war in Ukraine.
Budapest has tried to convince the U.S. administration that Hungary’s landlocked position leaves it no choice but to rely on Russian oil, despite an alternative oil pipeline connecting Hungary to the Adriatic Sea via Croatia.