GENEVA, February 3. /TASS/. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban says talks to settle the Ukrainian conflict need to happen now to prevent the country from going the way of Afghanistan.
"Today, we need diplomacy. The Europeans think that not holding talks is the moral thing to do. This is absurd! This is what needs to be done amid a war! Otherwise, it will continue until complete annihilation and Ukraine will turn into the European Union’s Afghanistan," he said in an interview with the Neue Zurcher Zeitung newspaper.
He said that Western countries are not doing Kiev any favors by letting it "believe that the West will stand by it until victory." "It was clear from the start that it would be impossible for Ukraine to win, unless we launched a total war. But this option is out of the question. Today, the only thing that can help Ukraine is a ceasefire and peace," he emphasized.
The West and former US President Joe Biden have failed to weaken Russia by means of the Ukrainian conflict, unable to force it to abandon its objectives in the special military operation, he explained. According to Orban, the West needs a strong leader like US President Donald Trump to step in, cut through all the red tape, and negotiate a truce between Russia and Ukraine.
While visiting the Andrews Air Force Base near the American capital on February 3, Trump said that his administration had scheduled meetings and talks with Russia and Ukraine, adding that he hoped something good would come out of this.
Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said earlier that Moscow remained open to communication with the US at the level of the two countries’ presidents but had not received any requests on the matter from Washington.