Orban has no leverage over Putin - Zelenskyy
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has no leverage over Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
This was stated by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a meeting of the All-Ukrainian Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, Interfax-Ukraine reports, Censor.NET informs.
The President noted that Ukraine is a strong country and has shown it on the battlefield.
"We are a strong country, we have shown it on the battlefield during all of Putin's aggression. Does anyone else in Europe have this experience now? No one else. Does Orban have such an army? No. How will he put pressure on Putin? With a joke, a smile? Let him keep it," the head of state said.
Zelenskyy also added that Ukraine needs direct relations with the United States without intermediaries.
"Prime Minister Orban, who wants, you know, "somehow, somewhere..." - will not succeed. I won't let him or people like him in," the president added, emphasizing that he was talking about the Hungarian prime minister, not the Hungarian people who support Ukraine.
Orban's call to Putin
Earlier it was reported that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban , after meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, had a phone conversation with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he had offered Ukraine and Russia a Christmas truce and a large-scale prisoner exchange.
Zelenskyy's adviser, Dmytro Lytvyn, said that the Hungarian side had not discussed anything of the sort with Ukraine.
The Kremlin said that Russia, in response to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban 's initiative for a "Christmas truce " and prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine, had allegedly passed its proposals to Budapest, but "Kyiv rejected the idea."
