Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to Visit Kyiv on Tuesday – Press

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has consistently resisted EU aid to Ukraine and has maintained relations with Russia, will visit Kyiv for the first time since the start of the Great War on Tuesday, according to media reports, BBC.

Orban’s upcoming visit and meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky were reported on Monday by the British newspapers Financial Times and Guardian, citing anonymous sources in Budapest and Kyiv.

“Orban will be here tomorrow unless something changes at the last minute,” the Guardian quotes its source in Kyiv as saying.

There is no official information regarding the visit from either side yet.

Sources in Budapest explained that Orban decided to go to Kyiv following Ukraine, in order to lift the Hungarian veto on the start of negotiations on accession to the EU, made concessions to Hungary on the issue of special rights for the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia.

Hungary took over the rotating EU presidency for six months on July 1, but a source in Kyiv told the Guardian that it was not yet clear in what capacity Orban was going to Ukraine: as his country’s prime minister or as an EU representative.

“There is clearly a conflict here [между интересами ЕС и Будапешта]”,” the newspaper’s source said.