MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/. Ukraine does not need Hungary's mediation to settle the conflict and plans to maintain communication directly with US President-elect Donald Trump, Vladimir Zelensky said.
"We don't need countries that now want to do this, like Hungary for example, like [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban," he said when asked about Orban's mediation efforts at a meeting with the public in the city of Lvov. "It won't work. I won't let him do this, or people like him. We need direct relations with the US."
Zelensky said he hopes for direct communication with the US after Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2025.
"Only afterward will I be able to say what in this plan (Kiev’s so-called victory plan - TASS) President Trump supported and what he did not. And what, perhaps, he will offer himself," he said, according to a recording of his meeting that was posted to the website of the Ukrainian legislature.
On December 9, Orban visited the US and met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
On December 11, Orban spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin and proposed a major prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine and a Christmas ceasefire. Moscow promptly responded to Orban's initiative. Immediately after the conversation between the two leaders, the Russian Federal Security Service submitted proposals for a prisoner swap to the Hungarian embassy. However, Kiev rejected the idea.