Ukraine and Hungary are preparing a meeting between President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi and Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban in the near future, the head of the presidential administration of Ukraine Andriy Yermak said on Thursday, Reuters reports. Agerpres.

“We are working on organizing a meeting between the two leaders in the near future,” Yermak said in a message posted on the X social network after a phone conversation with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijarto.

The latter also sent a message on Facebook after a conversation with a Ukrainian official, in which he also mentioned a one-on-one meeting he is going to hold in January with Zelenskyi’s chief of staff.

“Continuing high-level talks are important because they give us hope to improve our ties, and we are interested in maintaining the best possible relations with all our neighbors. We will certainly not change our peaceful position, but I look forward to our personal meeting in January as an opportunity to discuss the most pressing bilateral issues,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary.

Relations between Kyiv and Budapest are strained, the Hungarian government accuses the Hungarian minority of the Transcarpathian region of violating its rights. This relationship further deteriorated after Viktor Orbán refused any military support for Ukraine in the war with Russia while the government is in Budapest. Orbán warned that Hungary will not support Ukraine in any international forum until the rights of the Hungarian minority are restored.

According to Minister Peter Sijarto, many ethnic Hungarians from Ukraine who were drafted into the Ukrainian army died at the front. In June, Russia handed over 11 Ukrainian prisoners of war of Hungarian nationality to Hungary, an agreement between Budapest and Moscow that angered Kyiv.

Hungary’s prime minister this month at the European Council gave up his veto against the start of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU, instead he blocked EU financial aid to Ukraine in the amount of 50 billion euros, a decision made not only because of Budapest’s tensions with Kyiv, but also due to the European Commission’s blocking of European funds belonging to Hungary, whose government Brussels accuses of violating the rule of law.

This month, the European Commission unblocked €10.2 billion of cohesion funds for Hungary, as well as €920 million from the European REPowerEU plan, but other European funds (cohesion and for the post-pandemic recovery plan) amounting to more than €21 billion still remain frozen. , and Orban insists on their complete unblocking and believes that regarding the financial aid assigned to Ukraine, it should not be provided from the EU budget.

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