Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán dialed up Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday to discuss peace efforts for the ongoing war in Ukraine.
“I had an hour-long phone conversation this morning with President Putin,” Orbán shared on social media. “These are the most dangerous weeks of the Russia-Ukraine War. We are taking every possible diplomatic step to argue in favor of a ceasefire and peace talks,” he added.
The Kremlin later confirmed the call, noting it was initiated by Budapest. “Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán at the initiative of the Hungarian side,” the statement read.
During the discussion, Orbán pushed for “a joint search” for political and diplomatic solutions to the conflict. Meanwhile, Putin accused Kyiv of blocking “the possibility of a peaceful settlement.”
The leaders didn’t stop at Ukraine; their conversation touched on energy and economic cooperation and addressed tensions in the Middle East, specifically recent developments in Syria, according to the Kremlin.
This call comes just two days after Orbán met with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. However, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov clarified that Orbán wasn’t delivering messages from Trump and denied any talk of an upcoming meeting between the Hungarian and Russian leaders.
Orbán is only the second European leader to phone Putin in the past month, following German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s call on November 15. Earlier this year, Orbán became the first EU leader to meet Putin in Moscow, shortly after assuming the EU presidency, despite Western efforts to isolate the Russian president.
