Commenting on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s visit to Moscow, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda says his actions are undermining confidence in Budapest’s EU presidency.
On Friday, the Hungarian prime minister arrived in Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin.
“The unilateral decision by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to go to Moscow doesn’t in any shape or form represent the EU position. It also undermines the credibility of the Hungarian EU presidency. If you truly seek peace, you don’t shake hands with a bloody dictator, you put all your efforts to support Ukraine,” Nausėda said in a post on X.
The EU, for its part, has stressed that Orbán is not visiting Moscow as an EU representative, but is doing so in the framework of his country’s bilateral relations with Russia.
Orbán is the only EU leader who has maintained ties with the Kremlin since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Hungary took over the rotating EU presidency on Monday, giving the central European country influence over the bloc’s agenda and priorities for the next six months.
On Tuesday, the Hungarian leader met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv where he called on Ukraine to seek a “quick ceasefire” with Russia.
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