Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking in Lviv on Dec. 17, continued his attacks on Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has proposed a Christmas ceasefire to Moscow and Kiev. Ukrainska Pravda quoted Zelenskyy as saying: “Prime Minister Orbán, who wants to [achieve peace for Ukraine], you know, ‘somehow, somewhere…’ will not work…. It will not work, I will not let him in, and people like him…. We are a strong country; we have shown this on the battlefield…. Who else in Europe has such an example? No one. Does Orbán have such an army? No. How will he put pressure [on Russian President] Putin—a joke, a smile? He can keep it.” Rather, relates RT, Zelenskyy expects “direct contacts” with Washington after Trump’s inauguration, which will show which points of his so-called “peace formula” the Trump administration will support.
Orbán spoke with Putin by phone on Dec. 11, two days after his Dec. 9 meeting with Trump in Florida, after which, the Kremlin announced readiness to discuss Orbán’s Christmas Day truce and large-scale prisoner-swap between Moscow and Kiev. The Russian government sent its ideas for a POW exchange to the Hungarian Embassy in Moscow, according to the Kremlin. However, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto revealed that Kiev then refused a request for phone call request from Orbán, after Orbán had spoken with Trump and then Putin. Szijjarto said that Kiev’s rejection was made in a manner that is “quite unprecedented in diplomacy.”
