Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signaled his readiness to join US President Donald Trump in his upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest, Hungary, in the coming weeks. In an interview with NBC News, published on Sunday, Zelenskyy stressed that if the goal is a just and lasting peace, ‘we need both sides of this tragedy,’ declaring that he is ‘ready’ to meet both Putin and Trump at a summit hosted by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
‘How can there be some deals without us about us?’ Zelenskyy asked during the conversation, which was recorded last Friday, when the Ukrainian president met Trump at the White House. The meeting was expected to secure the long-awaited provision of Tomahawk long-range missiles for Ukraine, enabling Kyiv to strike targets deep inside Russia.
However, last Thursday Trump and Putin held a two-hour phone call, after which the US president announced that he would meet his Russian counterpart in Budapest in the coming weeks. Prime Minister Orbán confirmed that preparations were already under way following his own conversations with both Trump and Putin shortly thereafter.
After Putin travelled to Alaska in August for a long-anticipated meeting with Trump, the US president announced that the next step in the peace process would be a trilateral summit involving himself, Putin, and Zelenskyy. Budapest was discussed as a potential venue at the time as well; however, that meeting never materialized, with both warring sides accusing each other of avoiding serious negotiations and commitments to peace.
Trump said that he and Putin had chosen Hungary for several reasons, praising the country as strong, stable, and safe. ‘We like Viktor Orbán. He [Putin] likes him, I like him,’ Trump said, adding that he thinks ‘he will be a great host.’ The US president also remarked that Hungary ‘does not have a lot of the problems that other countries have.’
Reacting to the news, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó highlighted that Orbán is the only politician in the European Union today who maintains mutually respectful relations and cooperation with all major world leaders. ‘Unlike others pursuing war policies, Hungary continues to believe in diplomacy and now prepares to host the US–Russia peace summit in Budapest—a milestone in global peace efforts,’ Szijjártó said.
While the announcement that Hungary will host the Trump–Putin—and potentially Zelenskyy—summit is seen as a blow to Brussels, initial EU reactions remained restrained. A European Commission spokesperson stated last week that the Commission ‘welcomes the Budapest summit if it can help end the war in Ukraine,’ noting that Putin is not subject to an EU travel ban. They also emphasized that member states may grant derogations to allow the Russian president’s aircraft to transit their national airspace en route to the summit.
Budapest, however, is also a difficult choice of venue for Zelenskyy himself, as relations between the Hungarian and Ukrainian governments have recently reached a historic low—largely due to Ukrainian strikes on the Druzhba oil pipeline and Orbán’s veto of Kyiv’s EU accession bid. A potential trilateral meeting could nonetheless open the door to a much-needed reset in bilateral ties.
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