Kiev Rejects Orbán's Ceasefire Proposal in an 'Unprecedented' Move, Says Budapest
![]() |
Trump Team Explores Orbán's Ceasefire Proposal: A Path to Peace? |
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is looking at the Christmas ceasefire and prisoner swap proposal between Russia and Ukraine announced by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said Trump’s nominee for national security adviser Mike Waltz “. seriously.”
Orbán met with Trump and Waltz at the visiting president’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday, two days before his telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. After the talks, the Kremlin announced that Orban had proposed a Christmas Day truce and a major prisoner exchange between Moscow and Kiev, and that the Russian government had responded by exchanging POWs with the Hungarian embassy in Moscow is the source. to give their intention to .
Speaking to CBS News on Sunday, Waltz declined to say whether Orban relayed Trump's message to Putin. However, he said the Trump administration in waiting wanted to “stop the fighting” and that “any kind of ceasefire would be stopped as a first step…we’ll look closely at what that means”.
Orban communicates regularly with the Russians, he obviously has a good relationship with President Trump, and I hope the whole world would like to see some of the killing stopped,” Waltz told CBS's Margaret Brennan, calling the Donbass war “a human-driven a they are grinded.
In a social media post on Wednesday, Orban said that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky had “clearly rejected” his proposed ceasefire. In a post of his own, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky belittled Orban’s diplomatic activities, claiming that the Hungarian leader was only trying to “boost personal image at the expense of unity” in the EU concerning support for Kiev.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto then revealed that the Ukrainian leadership turned down a phone call request from Orban and had done so in a manner that was “quite unprecedented in diplomacy.” In an interview with public broadcaster Kossuth Radio on Sunday, Szijjarto said that the request was refused in “a somewhat strained” manner, without elaborating on the exact wording used by the authorities in Kiev.
Trump has repeatedly promised to end the Ukraine conflict within a day of taking office. However, he has not elaborated on how he plans to achieve this, and both Moscow and Kiev have cast doubt on his ability to single-handedly stop the fighting.
“Trump is really serious about wanting to get to a ceasefire on day one,” a source supposedly close to the incoming president told NBC News on Friday.