Zelenskyy refused to negotiate with Orbán on a truce with Russia “sharply and culturally”: Szijjártó

The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy refused to hold a telephone conversation with the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban, which caused an ambiguous reaction from the neighboring country. Hungarian officials called such a decision unprecedented. About this informs TRANSPORTATION.

“Very few people in Hungary have done more for the peaceful settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in the last thousand days”, — said the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade in the newspaper’s Sunday program on Radio Kossuth.

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Hungary Péter Szijártó noted that the war has been going on for more than a thousand days. And during that time, Hungary has taken a position that has been proven to show that there is no battlefield solution to this war — only death, suffering and further destruction.

“Not everyone realized that millions of people died, the supply of weapons did not change the distribution of forces, the reality remains that Russia is moving forward, and its army is constantly occupying new and new territories. Therefore, a solution is possible only at the negotiating table. Negotiations are necessary, but for peaceful negotiations need a ceasefire”, he emphasized.

Orbán had a more than hour-long phone conversation with Putin earlier this week, according to Szijjártó. Later, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary informed the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs and the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, requesting to organize a telephone conversation between Viktor Orban and the President of Ukraine.

However, the Ukrainian side refused this proposal. This, he believes, is an “unprecedented gesture in diplomacy.” However, it was done “rather sharply, but culturally.”