PM Orbán is supposedly on his way to Moscow at this moment

HUNGARY - In Brief 05 Jul 2024 by Istvan Racz

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PM Orbán met Ukrainian president Zelensky on Tuesday this week (July 2). This meeting was followed by an impressive amount of media noise, created by the affected governments, other politicians, political analysts and journalists all around the world. Most of the post-meeting comments appeared to be complete nonsense or at least empty (unfunded) speculation, the latter heavily determined by the various aspects of the ruling (conventional) wisdom about Russia, Ukraine, and (for us most importantly) Hungary. But the fact of the matter is that no one in the public domain has even the slightest idea on what exactly Messrs. Zelensky and Orbán were talking about, first of all because they evidently refrained from informing the public properly. This morning, however, the airplane which is normally used by PM Orbán has been reported as being airborne, moving in the direction of Moscow. This followed various hints in the press that Mr. Orbán may be in fact determined to fly to Russia today, and we also know that his foreign minister actually spoke to his Russian counterpart over the phone on the same day when his boss met the president of Ukraine. Regardless of openly voiced fears and harsh criticism that PM Orbán may want to negotiate in Moscow in the name of the EU, as the head of the rotating EU presidency, which he obviously would not have a right to do (strange, this criticism did not come up when he visited Kiyv), it may be useful to start considering the outside chance that Mr. Orbán may still play some role in the mediation between Kiyv and Moscow. This could have to do with Mr. Zelensky's recent statement that Russia should take part in the next round of a peace confer...