Hungarian President Orban to travel to Moscow to meet Putin

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin Vladimir Poutine The events took place in Moscow on Friday, Radio Free Europe and the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

Russian news agencies quote Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov The Kremlin said Putin had a “busy schedule” on Friday, which he would brief reporters on later.

It would be the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that Putin and Orban have met in Russia. Orban, who has had closer relations with Moscow than other EU leaders since the invasion, visited Russia in 2022 without meeting Putin, and has met him in other countries.

Since the beginning of the month, Hungary has assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union, a largely ceremonial role responsible for setting the agenda and negotiating deals in legislative matters.

The Hungarian government did not respond to emailed questions.

Earlier this week, Orban visited Kiev where he urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to consider a ceasefire to speed up the end of the war with Russia.

“The rotating EU presidency has no mandate to engage with Russia on behalf of the EU,” Charles Michel, the president of the European Union’s Council of Leaders, said on the social media platform X, reacting to Orban’s visit to Moscow.

“No discussion on Ukraine can take place without Ukraine,” he added.

Hungary, a member of the EU and NATO, has refused to send arms to Ukraine and has sharply criticized EU sanctions against Russia, while avoiding using its veto to block them.

While Western European countries have made serious efforts to wean themselves off Russian gas since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, landlocked Hungary gets most of its gas from Russia.

In June, the country said it had no plans to abandon natural gas imports from Russia and was seeking to deepen trade ties with Moscow in non-sanctioned areas.

(Reporting by Boldizsar Gyori in Budapest and Felix Light in Tbilisi; editing by Peter Graff)