VIENNA, November 1. /TASS/. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that during his visits to Moscow and Kiev in July he sought to broker at least a ceasefire.
"I made a draft plan, visited Kiev and Moscow, tried to broker a ceasefire. It was not about peace talks. It would have been hard. You need a peace plan for such talks," he said at a panel discussion organized by the Weltwoche news outlet in Vienna.
The politician said he believed at the time he could broker a ceasefire if he could convince both sides that "time was working against them." He said Russian President Vladimir Putin asked him whether Russia would get guarantees that Ukraine would not use a ceasefire to strengthen its position.
"I could not give them and therefore I failed," Orban said.
During a meeting with Vladimir Zelensky in the summer, the Hungarian prime minister tried to convince him that "things will get worse in September," he said. Zelensky replied that "things will get better" and Ukraine will win, Orban shared.