TASS reported on an interview of Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, with the German tabloid Bild, in which he stated that he does not consider Russian President Vladimir Putin to be a war criminal. “No. Not for me,” Orbán said. “We can talk about war crimes after the war. If we want a truce and talks, we have to convince those that are part of the conflict to sit down at the negotiating table,” the Prime Minister said. “It is a bad idea to ask them to sit at the negotiating table and say, ‘Come to the table, and I will arrest you,’” Orbán remarked. “It is absolutely inappropriate to talk about that [the alleged war crimes] right now,” he said.
Orbán also argued that “Ukraine is no longer a sovereign state. It has neither money nor weapons. It can keep on fighting only thanks to the assistance being provided,” he said. “It’s up to the United States to decide when peace will materialize.”