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Reuters: EU chief criticizes Hungary's Orban for 'peace mission' talks with Trump

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Reuters: EU chief criticizes Hungary's Orban for 'peace mission' talks with Trump
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban gives his first international press conference after his Fidesz party won the parliamentary election, in the Karmelita monastery housing the prime minister's office in Budapest, Hungary, on April 6, 2022. (Attila Kisbenedek/AFP via Getty Images)

A top European Union official criticized Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on July 16 for launching a self-styled Ukraine "peace mission" without EU backing. This move included talks with former U.S. President Donald Trump and the leaders of Russia and China.

In a letter to fellow leaders of the 27-nation bloc, Orban said that Trump, the U.S. Republican presidential candidate, is prepared to act "immediately" as a peace broker in the Russia-Ukraine war if elected in November.

Charles Michel, the chair of the European Council of the EU's national leaders, reprimanded the Hungarian premier and stressed that he had no mandate for talks on the war.

"The rotating Presidency of the Council has no role in representing the Union on the international stage and received no European Council mandate to engage on behalf of the Union," Michel told Orban in a letter seen by Reuters.

Many European officials fear that Trump could reduce U.S. support for Kyiv and push Ukraine into peace talks that would grant Moscow a significant portion of Ukrainian territory, potentially encouraging Russian leader Vladimir Putin to undertake further military actions.

Hungary, which has maintained close ties with Russia since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, assumed the EU's rotating six-month presidency at the beginning of July.

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Olena Goncharova

Head of North America desk

Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.

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U.S. President Donald Trump said the ceasefire deadline he set for Russia — scheduled for Aug. 8 — now depends on Vladimir Putin. "We’re going to see what he has to say. It's going to be up to him," Trump told reporters on Aug. 7.

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