Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi rejected the Hungarian proposal for a Christmas truce and a prisoner exchange with Russia. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced on Facebook on Wednesday, saying that Towards the end of its half-year presidency, Budapest made new efforts for peace. The correspondent of TASR in Budapest informs about it.
“At the end of Hungary’s EU (Council) presidency, we again tried to steer the warring parties towards peace. We proposed a Christmas truce and a large-scale prisoner exchange. How sad that today President Zelensky clearly rejected and ruled it out. We did what we could,” Orbán wrote.
According to the MTI agency, the head of Hungarian diplomacy, Péter Szijjártó, recalled on Facebook in this context that after Orbán’s proposal for a Christmas truce in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Hungarian government she contacted the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andriy Sybiha and the head of the Ukrainian presidential office Andriy Jermak.
“Communication channels are open in all directions and we would like to keep them open in the future as well, because it gives hope that one day there will be peace talks and there will be peace,” said Szijjártó, who also expressed regret that the Ukrainian president later rejected a possible Christmas truce and prisoner exchange on Platform X.
On Wednesday, Zelensky criticized Orbán for his phone call with the Russian president. “We all hope that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will not call (deposed Syrian President Bashar) Assad to Moscow to listen to his lectures for several hours,” wrote the Ukrainian president on the X platform in response to Orbán’s phone call with Putin.
