Considered to be the European leader closest to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban visited Ukraine on Tuesday, July 2, for the first time since the Russian invasion began in February 2022. The visit comes after Hungary took over the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) the previous day.

Orban, who regularly blocks or delays EU initiatives to help Ukraine, held talks in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In contrast to the positions of the Ukrainians and their European allies, he called on the Ukrainian president to "quickly consider the possibility of a ceasefire," which would be "limited in time and would make it possible to speed up the peace negotiations." Orban also promised to "report" the content of their "frank" discussion to the Council of the EU, "so that the necessary decisions" could be taken.

Zelensky insisted on the need to bring "a just peace" to Ukraine and Europe. "I have invited Hungary and Prime Minister Viktor Orban to join the efforts being made" to organize a new peace summit by Ukraine, said the president in his daily address, in a de facto rejection of the idea. In the past, he had already firmly rejected the idea of a truce with Russia, believing that Moscow would only use the time to reinforce its army. Ukraine regards the withdrawal of Russian forces from its territory as a prerequisite for peace, while Moscow is demanding that Kyiv cede five regions and give up its ambitions to join NATO.

Orban's last visit to Kyiv was in 2012, two years before the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in Donbas. Tuesday's trip had been prepared in secret since winter. "Orban chose the second day of his EU presidency to visit Ukraine. It's a great opportunity for him to show his potential and signal his new international stature," said Sergiy Gerasymchuk, deputy executive director of the Prism UA consultancy and one of Hungary's leading Ukrainian specialists. "He wants to show that he presides over the EU and not just Hungary, in which he feels cramped."

Hence the proposal for a ceasefire as a precondition for negotiating a political settlement to the war. "It's Orban's bluff, of course," continued the expert. "The Hungarian prime minister wants to put himself in the big league by pointing out that he is the only European to have met Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping [the Chinese president] and, now, Volodymyr Zelensky in recent times. In this way, he hopes to demonstrate that he is at the center of the diplomatic game, as a mediator, even though Hungary is a small country." In Kyiv, however, the Hungarian prime minister failed to make an impression: "Putin doesn't need Orban to get his message across. He talks with his guns," said Gerasymchuk.

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