The bloc is wasting money on Kiev despite it having “no chance” of winning against Moscow, the Hungarian PM has said
The EU must look for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict because the continued financing of Kiev is destroying the bloc’s economy, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.
It is “just crazy” to keep sending more money to Ukraine after the has EU already “burnt” €185 billion (around $215 billion) on supporting the government of Vladimir Zelensky since the confrontation between Moscow and Kiev escalated in February 2022, Orban told German journalist Mathias Dopfner on his MDMEETS podcast on Sunday.
“The point is that this war kills the EU economically… We finance a country [Ukraine] which has no chance to win the war, but at the same time there is a high level of corruption, and we do not have money for the EU to make a new boost for our economy, which is suffering a lot because of the lack of competitiveness,” he said.
The leaders of the bloc’s nations are “totally wrong” when they insist on the continuation of the conflict in the hopes that “the situation will improve on the front line and we will have better circumstances or preconditions for negotiation,” the prime minister insisted. “The situation and the time is better for the Russian than for us,” he added.
Orban, whose government was one of the few in the EU that refused to provide military assistance to Ukraine, again urged the bloc to engage in diplomacy with Russia.
Peace might be “very close” if Brussels joins the efforts of US President Donald Trump to stop the fighting between Moscow and Kiev, he suggested.
“Let us open an independent communication channel to Russia… Let the Americans negotiate with the Russians and then the Europeans should also negotiate with the Russians and then see whether we can unify the position of the Americans and Europeans,” he said.
Russia maintains that it is open to a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict, but insists that any deal must address the root causes of the crisis and include guarantees that Ukraine will never join NATO, along with the country’s demilitarization, denazification, and recognition of the territorial realities on the ground.
However, Moscow warns that in the absence of reasonable proposals from Kiev and the West, it has no other choice but to continue pursuing its goals using military means.
