MOSCOW, December 12. /TASS/. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has told his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in a phone conversation that Vladimir Zelensky rejected Budapest’s proposal for a temporary ceasefire and a prisoner swap, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

"In a follow-up to a previous phone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Viktor Orban following the Hungarian leader’s discussion of the situation around Ukraine with US President-elect Donald Trump, Peter Szijjarto said that Hungary’s proposal for a temporary ceasefire on the ‘Ukrainian front’ and a large-scale prisoner swap was rejected by Zelensky, as Budapest learned via officials of the Kiev regime. On the same day, Viktor Orban made a statement on the matter," the ministry noted.

The diplomatic agency said that, on his part, Sergey Lavrov pointed out that this is "far from the first instance where initiatives from genuinely peace-oriented countries, including Hungary and Turkey, which are of a humanitarian nature and aim to ensure uninterrupted deliveries of food products across the Black Sea and nuclear power plants’ security, have been rejected by the Kiev regime despite previous signals to the contrary."

The Russian Foreign Ministry reiterated the Russian side’s commitment to a realistic resolution to the conflict, as outlined by Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 14. "The ministers agreed on continuing close and trusting dialogue on various aspects of the Ukrainian crisis, taking into account various assessments and ideas provided by other countries," the Russian foreign policy agency noted.