Hungary's Prime Minister Orban pays his first visit to Ukraine during wartime.

• On Tuesday, Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, made his first visit to Ukraine during its ongoing conflict.
• Zoltan Kovacs, Hungary's international spokesperson, stated on social media that the talks will concentrate on ways to attain peace and address present problems in Hungarian-Ukrainian bilateral relations.
• Orban and his administration have refused to send weapons to Ukraine and have dissented against deeper NATO support of non-member Kyiv, claiming to be peacemakers.

On Tuesday, Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, made his first visit to Ukraine during its ongoing conflict.

Orban, a vocal critic of NATO's support for Kyiv and widely viewed as Russia's closest ally within the European Union, is set to meet with Zelenskyy to discuss peace in the European region.

Zoltan Kovacs, Hungary's international spokesperson, stated on social media that the talks will concentrate on ways to attain peace and address present problems in Hungarian-Ukrainian bilateral relations.

In December, Orban left the room to allow EU leaders to take a unanimous stance on opening accession talks with Ukraine. The bloc formally started membership discussions with Ukraine and Moldova last week, although a long and strenuous path lies ahead.

Orban, who claims to be a "peacemaker," has refused to send weapons to Ukraine and opposed increased NATO support for non-member Kyiv, but has also agreed not to hinder NATO initiatives. Despite his absence from the Ukraine Peace Summit in Switzerland, Hungary was represented by Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

The Hungarian prime minister has been one of the few Western leaders to meet with Putin since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In October, he assured Putin that Hungary never intended to confront Russia.

This week, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's nationalistic government will assume the rotating EU presidency, with a "Make Europe Great Again" slogan that echoes the 2016 campaign of former US President Donald Trump. The visit takes place two weeks before a crucial NATO summit on July 9-11, where outgoing Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has indicated that allies are expected to agree on additional long-term financial and security assistance for Ukraine.

In his meeting with Zelenskyy, Orban raised concerns about Ukraine's treatment of its ethnic Hungarian minority, particularly in the Zakarpattia region of western Ukraine.

Hungary has set forth certain demands regarding the rights of the minority group before allowing Kyiv to join the EU. In a significant concession, Ukraine's Parliament passed amendments in December 2020 that now allow institutions of higher education to choose their language of instruction, except for Russian, which has eased some of the longstanding concerns of regional minorities since the passing of Ukraine's 2017 law that mandated Ukrainian as the required language of study in state schools from the fifth grade onward, which raised EU concerns.