Orban to meet with Trump after NATO summit
Kyiv • UNN
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will meet with former US President Donald Trump in Florida after the NATO summit and his recent visit to Moscow, raising concerns about his potential role as a mediator between Trump and Putin.
Former US President Donald Trump will meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Florida on Thursday, July 11, less than a week after he met with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The visit is likely to heighten fears that the Hungarian leader is working as an intermediary between Putin and Trump, Bloomberg writes , UNN reports.
Details
According to the newspaper, Orban will travel to Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort after the NATO summit in Washington. His visit to Moscow was the central topic of discussion at the meeting of the Alliance representatives.
According to one of the people familiar with Orban's visit, Trump did not ask the Hungarian leader to lay the groundwork for any peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.
The source described the visit as more of an informal meeting.
Bloomberg notes that the Hungarian leader and Trump maintain a close relationship, and in March Orban visited Mar-a-Lago. Trump gave him a tour of his residence, dinner with former first lady Melania Trump and an hour-long meeting with senior aides.
Trump and Putin have professed sympathy for each other since Trump's presidency, which has often drawn bipartisan criticism. Recently, the Republican leader said that he believes he can convince Putin to end the war in Ukraine and release Americans detained in Russia if he is elected to a second term.
Following visits by EU presidency Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban on "peacekeeping missions" to Moscow and Beijing, Budapest received "unprecedented" verbal criticism from representatives of other bloc countries at a meeting on Wednesday, which some described as a "yellow card".