VIENNA, July 10. /TASS/. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban "does not understand the nature of the Ukrainian conflict" and cannot act as a mediator, an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian president's office, Mikhail Podolyak, said.

"This is not an initiative, Orban does not understand the nature of this conflict. Only the EU, China or the US can act as mediators," he said in an interview with Der Standard, adding that the Hungarian prime minister did not discuss his trips to Moscow and Beijing with Kiev.

According to Podolyak, Orban did not receive a mandate from the EU to play this role, and Hungary does not have "the tools to influence global processes."

Last week, Orban conducted a number of foreign visits aimed at searching for ways to settle the conflict in Ukraine. On July 5, the Hungarian prime minister visited Moscow to discuss with Russian President Vladimir Putin possible ways to resolve the conflict in Ukraine and start peace talks. Before that — on July 2 — Orban traveled to Kiev, where he met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. On July 8, Orban met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and exchanged views with him about the prospects of resolving the Ukrainian crisis.

On June 14, Putin proposed to build a new architecture that would take into account the concerns of all. He also listed conditions for peace talks with Ukraine. Among them are the withdrawal of the Ukrainian armed forces from Donbass and Novorossiya and Kiev’s pledge not to join NATO. Ukraine should also remain neutral and commit to having no nuclear weapons, while all Western sanctions against Russia should be removed. Putin pointed out that if Ukraine and the West rejected these conditions, they could change in the future. Kiev rejected the Russian peace plan.