Russia will be “reintegrated” into the world economy and the European energy system once a peace deal is achieved and the war ends in Ukraine, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told state radio on Friday.
“If the U.S. president comes and creates peace, there is a deal, I think Russia will be reintegrated into the world economy… the European security system and even the European economic and energy system, that will give a huge boost to the Hungarian economy,” Orban, an ally of President Donald Trump, said. “We will win a lot with a peace deal.”
Trump said both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed a desire for peace in separate phone calls with him on Wednesday, and he ordered top U.S. officials to begin talks on ending the war in Ukraine.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, Orban has emerged as a vocal critic of EU sanctions against Moscow and the bloc’s financial and military support for Ukraine.
While countries in Western Europe have made serious efforts to wean themselves off Russian energy, landlocked Hungary gets 80-85% of its gas from Russia, with most of its crude oil supplies also coming from Russia.
(Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Alex Richardson)