Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has declared that Ukraine has lost its war against Russia, ahead of a planned meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has lost this war. The Ukrainians have lost, Russia has won,” Orbán told Hungarian news outlet mandiner.hu in an interview published Wednesday, August 13.
He argued that the conflict is no longer open-ended and suggested it would have ended long ago without Western military and financial support for Kyiv.
Orbán, a frequent critic of EU sanctions on Moscow, reiterated his opposition to such measures and accused Western allies of prolonging the fighting.
On Tuesday, Hungary refused to sign a joint statement with its 26 fellow EU members welcoming Trump’s efforts to end the war. The statement stressed that Ukraine’s territorial integrity must be respected and that “international borders must not be changed by force.”
Explaining his government’s refusal, Orbán claimed the declaration tried to set negotiation terms for talks EU leaders were not invited to attend. The Trump-Putin meeting, set for Friday in Anchorage, Alaska, has raised fears in Kyiv and across Europe that it could lead to a deal forcing Ukraine to make territorial concessions — something Zelensky has firmly rejected.
Posting on Facebook, Orbán lamented the EU’s exclusion from the talks: “It’s sad enough that the EU has been pushed to the sidelines. The only thing worse will be if we were giving instructions from the sidelines.”
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