BUDAPEST, December 21. /TASS/. Talks between Russia and the United States are needed to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at a press conference in Budapest on Wednesday.
"What is really needed [to end the Ukrainian conflict] is not Russia-Ukraine, but Russia-US talks," he said.
When asked if such talks could take place in Budapest, he clarified that his words could be considered as a standing offer by the Hungarian government. "But the main thing is that such negotiations should take place after all," Orban pointed out.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, noting that the operation was aimed at the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine. In response to Russia's decision, the West imposed large-scale sanctions against it and began supplying Kiev with weapons worth tens of billions of dollars.