BUDAPEST: Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Friday celebrated his country’s status as the host of upcoming talks between US President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, a meeting where the two leaders are expected to discuss an end to the war in Ukraine.
Trump on Thursday announced his second meeting this year with Putin a day before he was to sit down with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House. A date for the meeting has not been set, but Trump said it would take place in Hungary’s capital, Budapest, and suggested it could happen in about two weeks.
Hungary opposes the West’s support of Ukraine
Speaking to state radio on Friday, Orbán, a close Trump ally and considered Putin’s closest partner in the European Union, suggested that his long-standing opposition to the West supplying Ukraine with military and financial aid for its defense against Russia’s invasion had played a role in making Budapest the site of the talks.
“Budapest is essentially the only place in Europe today where such a meeting could be held, primarily because Hungary is almost the only pro-peace country,” Orbán said. “For three years, we have been the only country that has consistently, openly, loudly and actively advocated for peace.”
Orbán, who has often taken an adversarial stance against Ukraine and Zelensky, has consistently portrayed his position as pro-peace, while casting his European partners that favor assisting Kyiv in its defense as warmongers. Yet Orbán’s critics view Hungary’s position as favoring the aggressor in the war and splintering European unity in the face of Russian threats.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Hungary, a NATO member, has refused to supply Ukraine with weapons or allow their transfer across its borders. Orbán has threatened to veto certain EU sanctions against Moscow and held up the bloc’s adoption of major funding packages to Kyiv.
Meanwhile, Hungary has actively resisted weaning off of Russian fossil fuels that help fund Moscow’s war, and, in contrast to almost all of the EU’s other 26 countries, has even increased its supplies since the 2022 invasion.
Organizing a meeting with Putin is complicated
The meeting in Budapest comes after Trump failed to secure an agreement to end the war in Ukraine during an August meeting with Putin in Alaska. Falling short of his campaign pledge to quickly stop the bloodshed, Trump rolled out the red carpet for the man who started it.
A trip to Budapest for Putin would require him flying through the airspace of several NATO member countries, a potential complicating factor in organizing the meeting. Hungary is also a signatory to the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, which in 2023 issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes. As a signatory, Orbán’s government would be required to arrest Putin if he set foot on Hungarian soil.
However, Orbán said in April that his country would begin the process of withdrawing from the court after he gave red carpet treatment in Budapest to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also faced an ICC warrant on suspicion of crimes against humanity.
Budapest holds symbolic significance
Budapest hosting the Trump-Putin meeting also holds symbolic significance: It was in the Hungarian capital in 1994 that the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia granted Ukraine assurances of sovereignty and territorial integrity in exchange for Kyiv giving up its nuclear weapons.
Yet for many Ukrainians, the Budapest Memorandum has become a symbol of promises that carried no weight after Moscow shredded the agreement first with the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and then with the full-scale invasion in 2022.
On Friday, Orbán said he’d spoken to Trump on Thursday evening and would speak directly with Putin on Friday morning. Set to face the most challenging election of his last 15 years in power in April, Orbán said that while the upcoming negotiations in Budapest were “not about Hungary,” the capital’s hosting of the meeting could be viewed as a personal political success.
“God knows when was the last time there was such an important diplomatic event in Hungary, where we are not simply hosts, but it is also considered a political achievement,” he said.
Orbán celebrates Hungary as ‘the only place in Europe’ where a Trump-Putin meeting can be held
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Orbán celebrates Hungary as ‘the only place in Europe’ where a Trump-Putin meeting can be held
- The meeting in Budapest comes after Trump failed to secure an agreement to end the war in Ukraine during an August meeting with Putin in Alaska
- Orbán, who has often taken an adversarial stance against Ukraine and Zelensky, has consistently portrayed his position as pro-peace, while casting his European partners that favor assisting Kyiv in its defense as warmongers
Hong Kong election turnout in focus amid anger over deadly fire
- Security tight as city holds legislative elections
- Residents angry over blaze that killed at least 159
HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s citizens were voting on Sunday in an election where the focus is on turnout, with residents grieving and traumatized after the city’s worst fire in nearly 80 years and the authorities scrambling to avoid a broader public backlash.
Security was tight in the northern district of Tai Po, close to the border with mainland China, where the fire engulfed seven towers. The city is holding elections for the Legislative Council, in which only candidates vetted as “patriots” by the China-backed Hong Kong government may run.
Residents are angry over the blaze that killed at least 159 people and took nearly two days to extinguish after it broke out on November 26. The authorities say substandard building materials used in renovating a high-rise housing estate were responsible for fueling the fire.
Eager to contain the public dismay, authorities have launched criminal and corruption investigations into the blaze, and roughly 100 police patrolled the area around Wang Fuk Court, the site of the fire, early on Sunday.
A resident in his late 70s named Cheng, who lives near the charred buildings, said he would not vote.
“I’m very upset by the great fire,” he said during a morning walk. “This is a result of a flawed government ... There is not a healthy system now and I won’t vote to support those pro-establishment politicians who failed us.”
Cheng declined to give his full name, saying he feared authorities would target those who criticize the government.
At a memorial site near the burned-out residential development, a sign said authorities plan to clear the area after the election concludes close to midnight, suggesting government anxiety over public anger.
Beijing’s national security office in Hong Kong has said it would crack down on any “anti-China” protest in the wake of the fire and warned against using the disaster to “disrupt Hong Kong.”
China’s national security office in Hong Kong warned senior editors with a number of foreign media outlets at a meeting in the city on Saturday not to spread “false information” or “smear” government efforts to deal with the fire.
The blaze is a major test of Beijing’s grip on the former British colony, which it has transformed under a national security law after mass pro-democracy protests in 2019.
An election overhaul in 2021 also mandated that only pro-Beijing “patriots” could run for the global financial hub’s 90-seat legislature and, analysts say, further reduced the space for meaningful democratic participation.
Publicly inciting a vote boycott was criminalized as part of the sweeping changes that effectively squeezed out pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong. Pro-democracy voters, who traditionally made up about 60 percent of Hong Kong’s electorate, have since shunned elections.
The number of registered voters for Sunday’s polls — 4.13 million — has dropped for the fourth consecutive year since 2021, when a peak of 4.47 million people were registered.
Seven people had been arrested as of Thursday for inciting others not to vote, the city’s anti-corruption body said.
Hong Kong and Chinese officials have stepped up calls for people to vote.
“We absolutely need all voters to come out and vote today, because every vote represents our push for reform, our protection of the victims of disaster, and a representation of our will to unite and move forward together,” Hong Kong leader John Lee said after casting his vote.
Hong Kong’s national security office urged residents on Thursday to “actively participate in voting,” saying it was critical in supporting reconstruction efforts by the government after the fire.
“Every voter is a stakeholder in the homeland of Hong Kong,” the office said in a statement. “If you truly love Hong Kong, you will vote sincerely.”
The last Legislative Council elections in 2021 recorded the lowest voter turnout — 30.2 percent — since Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997.
