Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and former U.S. President Donald Trump will meet on July 11, after the NATO summit in Washington.
Bloomberg writes about this, citing sources familiar with the matter, Babel reports.
This meeting will take place almost immediately after Orbán’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. He was criticized for these visits in the European Union. Bloomberg writes that this meeting may increase fears that Orbán is working as a “mediator” between Putin and Trump.
However, according to the newspaper’s sources, the Hungarian prime minister’s visit today will be more of an informal meeting. He will go to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. According to one of Bloomberg’s interlocutors, Trump did not ask Orbán to lay the groundwork for any peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia.
It is known that Viktor Orbán is a longtime ally of Donald Trump. And Trump himself has often spoken positively about the Hungarian prime minister at rallies and in speeches since leaving the White House. In March 2024, they met, and Orbán called on Trump to become president again to “restore peace”.
Orbán’s “peace tour”
On July 2, Orbán arrived in Kyiv, where he held talks with Zelenskyy. It was his first visit to Ukraine since the start of the full-scale war. During the meeting, Orbán called the war a Russian invasion, but asked Zelenskyy for a ceasefire.
On July 5, Orbán arrived in Moscow and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. One of the key topics of the meeting was Russia’s war against Ukraine and its “peaceful settlement.” Orbán himself called his trip a “peace mission.”
On July 8, Orbán arrived in China as part of his “peace mission”. On the same day, Zelenskyy said that he did not know that Orbán would go to Moscow after Kyiv. He noted that Orbán cannot be a mediator in ending the war – this role can be played by the United States, China, and the collective EU, the forces that can deter Russia economically and militarily.
