Moscow accepted his idea of a prisoner exchange, but Ukraine refused to discuss it, the Hungarian PM has said
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that he had proposed that Russia and Ukraine exchange approximately 700 prisoners as part of his plan to introduce a Christmas ceasefire.
Earlier this month, Orban suggested that Moscow and Kiev declare a truce during the holiday, calling it a last-ditch attempt to mediate a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. He also floated the idea to Donald Trump when the two met at the US president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. However, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky rejected Budapest’s offer.
The Christmas ceasefire is “still possible,” the Hungarian prime minister insisted during a joint press conference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa in Brussels on Thursday.
EU politicians “talk a lot about European values, but I think the most important value is life,” he insisted.
“It is going to be Christmas. I see no obstacle to people not dying on the front line for at least two or three days… I see no obstacle to the parties agreeing that a few hundred people, who are prisoners – say 700 on each side – go home,” Orban said.
He expressed the belief that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine cannot be settled on the battlefield and called for an intensification of efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
According to the prime minister, the diplomats must take the reins from the generals, “otherwise there will be no end to the war or at least no end in the foreseeable future. Only loss of life over and over again.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier confirmed that Orban had proposed a ceasefire and a major prisoner swap to Vladimir Putin during their phone conversation last week. The Russian government responded by sending its ideas for a POW exchange to the Hungarian embassy in Moscow, he added.
However, according to Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, an attempt by Budapest to make a similar offer to Kiev failed, as the Ukrainian leadership turned down a phone call request from Orban in a manner that is “quite unprecedented in diplomacy.”
Earlier this week, Zelensky said the authorities in Kiev “do not need countries… like Hungary, like Prime Minister Orban [to be a mediator between Russia and Ukraine]. It will not work, I will not let him in, and people like him.”
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Peskov stressed previously that, unlike Ukraine, Russia “fully supports Orban’s efforts aimed at finding a peaceful settlement and resolving humanitarian issues related to the exchange of prisoners.”
